A few weeks after Victoria’s city council passed a motion for a pay increase to councillors beginning on May 1st, they have decided to delay the pay increase until an independent task force can assess how the raise is implemented.
The motion, which was discussed at length in the March 14th Committee of the Whole meeting, would see city councillors base salary lifted to half of the mayor’s salary of $131,050.
The pay raise for city councillors would increase their base-rate pay from $52,420 per year to $65,525, excluding any additional compensation they receive from committees outside city council.
This would be a 25% increase from what the base salary is now.
After public outcry and widespread media attention, including two Times Colonist op-eds from Councillors Stephen Hammond and Jeremy Caradonna, city council say they have realized that giving themselves a raise during their tenure as councillors isn’t optically ideal.
This is something Mayor Marianne Alto warned of in her closing remarks before city council voted in favour of the motion on March 14th.
Related:
Here’s how much Victoria council will make after voting to give themselves 25% pay raise
Councillor Krist Loughton brought up in the April 4th council meeting that although there has not been a review of council members compensation since 2008, she believes that engaging an independent task force to review how and when the raise is implemented is a good decision for council transparency.
“The public was surprised by the motion arising on March 14th, and that was not my intention,” Loughton said.
“For that I apologize.”
She said that her decision was made because of how long ago the last compensation review was held and because she did not want lower income people to be deterred from running for council based on the wage.
“A resident emailed me shortly after this decision and said, ‘It’s terrible that you have been put into the position where you are forced to determine your own salaries—it’s humiliating,’ and she nailed it. This has been humiliating.”
Loughton said through tears that she has been yelled at several times over the phone on this issue.
She believes that there should be a standardized process to determine compensation which would be conducted at the end of every election term.
After another lengthy discussion on the issue, council voted in favour of delaying their pay increase until after an independent body can review how and when compensation would be increased.
The amendments passed unanimously.
