Vernon City
Council is again facing the often difficult an uncomfortable question of setting
the level of its own compensation for the service it renders.
Being on
Council is a lot of hard work. Generally the public is unaware of the sometimes
onerous time commitment required of those who serve on city councils. A side
from the statutory required attendance at the regular Council meetings there
are a myriad of other meetings that elected officials need to attend.
Each meeting
requires conscientious preparation on the part of the elected officials.
Regular City Council Agenda can exceed several hundred pages and are usually
only received the Thursday before a Monday meeting. Effective debate and
decisions require a great deal of time; time away from regular their personal
and family pursuits.
The time commitment is the greatest for the
Mayor and in the City of Vernon this office is considered to be full time and is
compensated as such. Such is not the case with the rest of council who though
busy are still able with some juggling of schedules and the kind of understanding employers and
clientele, are able to continue in their vocations. The work of Councillors in
a City the size of Vernon is not full time and is thus reflected in their
compensation.
It should
always be remembered however that the decision to serve in public office does
carry with it a spirit of volunteerism; a desire to give back to the community in
which one lives. In short, one should not seek a political office in a community
the size of Vernon as a way of finding gainful employment. Still there is a widespread
sentiment in favor of some financial compensation to be awarded to our local
politicians. I believe this a correct practice. Nevertheless the sticky
question remains how much should they be paid and who should decide?
Historically
our council has put the burden of recommending levels of Council compensation on
the shoulders of a citizen “arm’s length” committee. Once presented with the committee’s
unbiased recommendations Council is free to reject, adopt or modify the
committees report as they see fit. Here
is where the difficulty comes. If the majority of Council is seeking
re-election it would be unlikely for them to support an increase for themselves
and risk the ire of the electorate. If this scenario is repeated over several
election terms the council levels of compensation can actually become a deterrent
to those qualified informed individuals who might consider running for public
office. It is really hard to shake the image that Council is taking on role of
the fox guarding the hen house if they support a committee sanctioned increase.
As a result the report is ignored or modified beyond recognition forcing arm’s
length committee to wonder if their efforts were really worthwhile. This is the
conflict and challenge regarding compensation faces elected officials province
wide. I would like to suggest that the solution may lie with the provincial
government.
Why couldn't the Provincial legislation contain a detailed formula for determining the
salaries paid to elected municipal officials? Such calculations could remove
the tendency for these decisions to be too politically driven. The algorithm
could take into account the size of communities and could provide for some
degree of parity among similar communities. It could look at the burden of
management responsibilities as well the size of the budgets administered. The provincial
government is in possession of much more detailed and precise economic information
on a given community’s ability to support their City Councils and I would argue
that making this difficult decision into one that is truly arm’s length would
free Councils attention to deal with more pressing matters. I believe the
province should at least look of somehow introducing some rationale into how
municipal elected officials are valued and compensated.
Finally, we
would then be spared the coy hand wringing that always accompanies debate over
council compensation.
Cheers Shawn Lee a Vernon Taxpayer
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