Panel to study Metro board pay, benefits
An independent panel will be set up this summer to recommend pay and benefit levels for elected officials who serve on Metro Vancouver’s board of directors.
The panel was proposed after the board, reacting to a public outcry, reversed its decision to bring in a pay increase and a retirement benefit this spring. Metro staff were asked to prepare terms of reference.
The panel will review the Metro board remuneration policy and best practices of paying elected officials across Canada. Members will meet at least three times and report their findings and recommendations in early 2019. Metro staff will provide research and administrative support.
The panel’s work will be done in private, although two board members suggested the public should be able to witness the panel’s activities. The panel will include three external representatives, one from the private sector, one from the public sector and one former elected official. Metro’s chief administrative officer and its head of human resources will provide advice. Panel members will not be paid, but there is money in the budget to cover expenses associated with meetings, including travel and catering.
Metro chair Greg Moore will appoint the panel members and said he expects to have them chosen by the end of August.
Metro director Andrea Reimer, a councillor in Vancouver, said her city did a similar review three years ago and warned that they had difficulty finding panel members because of the “highly politicized nature” of the discussion.
In March, the Metro board voted to increase pay by 15 per cent to offset federal tax changes, which eliminated the non-taxable status for a portion of elected official salaries effective Jan. 1, 2019. They also introduced a retirement allowance. A number of municipalities in the region recently made adjustments to council pay for the same reason.
The retirement allowance was the most controversial change. It would have given board members a lump-sum payment when they leave the Metro board at the end of their term or if they were not re-elected.
The allowance would have been paid at a municipal pension rate of 10.2 per cent and worked out to, on average, about $1,100 for every year of service. The allowance was supposed to be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007.