So Mayor Gregor Robertson and his council are getting a pay raise.
I brought you this news back on Jan. 8.
But at the time, your civic officials didn’t know how much of a bump they would receive. That’s because data relied upon annually by city staff to determine the raise isn’t the same as previous years.
I’ll explain in a few sentences, or so.
For now, you should know mayor and council are getting a 3.24 per cent hike.
So that means Robertson will earn $154,346 this year, a decent jump from last year’s salary of $149,503. Councillors’ salaries increase to $67,994 from $65,860. Coincidentally, property taxes also went up again this year.
But as Vision Coun. Geoff Meggs has told me previously and the mayor reiterated when I spoke to him last week, pay raises and property tax hikes cannot be connected. That’s because way back in 1995, an independent panel set a formula that said a pay increase for council should reflect what the average full-time employee in Vancouver earns.
Coun. Raymond Louie told me it was $65,860 last year, which seems a bit high.
Anyway, since the panel’s decision, increases have been automatic in January and adjusted annually to track changes in wages as reported by Statistics Canada. This time around, however, the data was collected under the voluntary National Household Survey, which replaced the mandatory long-form census.
Louie’s concern was the survey would not be as accurate as the census or reflective of wage earners.
Are you still with me?
Here’s an excerpt of a memo from city manager Penny Ballem to city council to further confuse you:
“More analysis is required to complete a comprehensive evaluation of the [survey] data. In the interim, the director of finance, in consultation with the city solicitor, has reviewed a number of options and has concluded the most appropriate index to use for 2014 is to continue using the change in the average weekly wage for B.C., as has been used in the interim years (2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013) between census dates.”
Some of you know council also pulls in more cash for their Metro Vancouver duties. I’ve written about this many times, so I won’t go into it again. Plus, I wanted to give you some more news on the earnings of Police Chief Jim Chu and his crew at the Vancouver Police Department.
I’ve learned the chief and 41 other officers and staff will get raises this year, too.
A report that went before the Vancouver Police Board last Thursday said the total cost of the increases will be $174,360. The report didn’t identify who would get what.
As I’ve reported previously, Chu earns more than $300,000 a year. It puts him in the same club as Toronto police chief, Bill Blair, who earned $328,557 in 2011, according to the Ontario Ministry of Finance’s public sector salary disclosure statement.
And in case you think city council’s pay is too high, their counterparts in Toronto and Calgary make more than $100,000 each per year. For the record, Toronto mayor Rob Ford pulls in about $20,000 more per year than Robertson.
Sure, he represents a bigger city.
But is there any doubt Ford has not brought his A-game to the job?
OK, maybe there is.
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