Sturgeon County councillors should give themselves a 20.5-per-cent raise this year to bring their wages in line with those of other governments, a new report concludes.
County council voted 5-1 to receive the council remuneration review report on Tuesday, with Coun. Karen Shaw opposed and Coun. Wayne Bokenfohr absent.
Back in February council voted to review what it pays itself in light of changes to the federal tax code that will, as of 2019, remove the ability for councillors to get up to a third of their salary tax-free.
County council last reviewed its wages and benefits in 2006.
Consultant Michael Lim said his review compared Sturgeon County’s council pay with what is given in 11 comparable Alberta communities, including St. Albert, Spruce Grove and Red Deer County.
Lim found that Sturgeon County’s mayor and councillors earned about eight per cent less than the average earned by half of these communities. Mayor Alanna Hnatiw earns $79,265 a year in wages and benefits, while county councillors earn $55,735.
Lim recommended that council raise its pay so that it matched the average earned by 75 per cent of the councils in the study, saying that this would be a competitive wage that would attract qualified candidates to public office.
Doing so would give Hnatiw an immediate 14.7-per-cent raise and bump her pay up to $90,928 a year. Councillors would get a 20.5-per-cent pay hike and take home $67,185 a year.
“The work of council is demanding and time-consuming,” Lim said, and should be fairly compensated.
Lim said just one of the 11 communities in the study (Strathcona County) had addressed the upcoming federal tax changes and did so by bumping up its pay to compensate. Sturgeon would have to raise its wages by another 15 to 20 per cent if it wanted to offset the tax changes.
Lim also recommended that council do more frequent reviews of its remuneration to avoid big adjustments like the ones proposed here.
“My recommendation is that you don’t put it off for too long,” he said, while acknowledging that “no time was a good time” to discuss council pay.
He suggested doing it in the third year of a term, and to debate cost-of-living increases during budget time.
Coun. Susan Evans initially opposed accepting the report, as she said doing so implied that council endorsed the idea of pumping up wages to the 75-per-cent mark. She changed her position when county corporate support manager Rick Wojtkiw said administration would prepare this fall’s draft budget on the assumption of no change in pay, with the report’s recommendations offered as options for debate.
In an interview, Hnatiw said that residents were unlikely to support the raise recommended by the report, given that they already opposed county staffers being paid at the 75-per-cent mark.
“Twelve years is a long time to go without having a review,” she said, adding that she thought the lack of appetite previous councils had for doing one was more of a political statement than one that addressed fair pay. Council had a lot of work on its plate, and the federal tax change, unaddressed, would lead to an automatic pay cut.
Hnatiw said in an email that council was considering setting up an arms-length committee to handle future council pay reviews.
Lim’s report is available in the agenda package for the Sept. 11 council meeting.
