Whether St. Albert city councillors should be classified full-time positions caused debate Tuesday night when council discussed ratifying a committee to review its pay and expense policy.
Coun. Cam MacKay sparked the controversy when he suggested removing a clause that would have the committee review council’s employment status.
St. Albert currently has one full-time mayor and six part-time councillors and MacKay said St. Albert isn’t big enough to warrant full-time councillors.
“I think we should be able to agree after being in the role now it is decidedly a part-time position,” MacKay said. “You can do as much as you want … the amount of work you really have to do is a part-time job.”
If St. Albert was part of Edmonton, MacKay said, it would likely only warrant a single full-time councillor as a representative.
Coun. Wes Brodhead didn’t want to see the discussion about full-time councillors removed from the scope of the review.
Brodhead said the committee would also hear from the public about what its expectations of council are.
Coun. Cathy Heron said she wants to know what the community thinks the appropriate trigger would be to warrant a full-time status for councillors.
“This is not about a drastic pay raise, it’s not about councillors doing X number of hours and X number of volunteer hours, it’s about having a realistic view of the role,” she said.
Mackay said he’d rather see more part-time councillors added before moving the role to full time, telling council that the idea of having seven full-time councillors “wandering around” looking for projects to do “quite frankly scares me.”
His proposed amendment to remove the full-time review clause was defeated in a 5-2 vote.
While council voted down MacKay’s amendment it did approve an amendment motion from Heron.
Heron’s amendment was to have the committee seek input from all current members of council. She was on council the last time remuneration was reviewed and said councillors were not given an opportunity to give feedback about how much work they do.
Ultimately the attempt to set up a committee was put on hold following a suggestion from the mayor that further discussion be postponed until March 16.
To set up the committee council must pass a bylaw. The first of three required readings was passed.
The wording of the suggested bylaw is mostly the same as the last time a remuneration committee was struck in 2011, with only a few tweaks.
The committee would consist of five citizens of St. Albert appointed by the city manager.
In addition to the full-time council review, the suggested scope looks at the pay rates for mayor and council, the methodology for determining raises, the level of employment benefits, pay rates for attending meetings, expenses, travel and mileage rates.
Public notice of the committee’s meetings would be posted in St. Albert Place and online.
