A proposed 13 to 18 per cent pay increase for Red Deer city council would simply keep politicians’ take-home pay at the current level and doesn’t amount to a pay raise, says Mayor Tara Veer.
But some Red Deerians aren’t seeing it that way.
The trouble with boosting gross salaries to offset a tax increase, wrote Calvin Goulet-Jones on Veer’s Facebook page, is that “no one in Red Deer has the opportunity to simply increase their own salary to compensate for tax increases.
“Since no one else has this opportunity, how can you suggest it is reasonable for council to do this?”
A third of many elected officials’ salaries have been tax free for many years, but this allowance in the Federal Tax Act is being taken away in January, requiring councillors and school trustees to pay tax on all of their earnings.
As a result, many municipal councils and school boards are considering increasing their salaries to compensate for paying more taxes and keep their net, or take-home, pay the same.
Lacombe city and county councils already did it, and so did the Red Deer Public School board. The Red Deer Catholic board and Red Deer city council will be discussing it later this month.
The proposal is to raise Red Deer council salaries to $68,618 from $60,466, and the mayor’s salary to $131,940 from $112,198, so take-home amounts don’t change.
Sandra Zak wrote on Facebook: “Hmm it is a raise. You were paid so much prior to the change and received one-third tax free. Now you increase the payment rates and have to pay taxes like the rest of us, no special tax rates.”
While some other Red Deerians are more aligned with Veer’s perspective, there’s a general sense the proposed increase could create a hardship for local taxpayers — who, in most cases, are getting little in the way of salary increases these days.
But Veer believes it would essentially be a transfer of responsibility from federal taxpayers (who previously had to carry the tax exemption) to property taxpayers.
It’s the federal government that caused the controversy by first allowing the exemption and now taking it away, she added.
“Council has other matters of public policy we would much rather be debating,” she said, but the compensation matter is coming up for discussion Nov. 26, to be dealt with before the new year.
Coun. Tanya Handley said the tax exemption was to make up for public officials not charging for some of their expenses. For example, she said she drives “thousands of kilometres” for her job around Red Deer and never submits an expense claim unless she drives out of town for a meeting.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation suggests citizen councils should be established to set civic politicians’ wages.
“No one gets to set their own wages, except for entrepreneurs, who have skin in the game,” said the group’s Alberta director, Franco Terrazzano.
Handley said she wouldn’t be opposed to this, but city council now relies on administrators doing wage comparisons with other similar-sized councils to set compensation.
Coun. Buck Buchanan wanted to tie the compensation discussion to the question of whether city councillor positions should now officially be considered full time rather than part time.
He said he puts in 40 to 50 hours most weeks — including many evenings and weekends — meeting with concerned Red Deerians, attending committee meetings, workshops and community functions.
He noted council pay is a good $20,000 less than what he received as a police officer, and he retired years ago.
Community service and not salaries is the reason most people run for public office, said Coun. Diane Wyntjes. But at the same time, she believes council wages should be high enough to attract skilled and knowledgeable people.
Veer doesn’t want to link the matter of offsetting a tax increase with discussion of workload or merit. They have nothing to do with each other, and would just confuse people, she said.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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