Milton Councillor's Give Themselves a Pay Increase

I thought I was in a time warp when I read this…but alas its real and recent.  The pay increase being talked about isnt a cost of living adjustment but rather an annual review of the salaries. 

As Ive talked about in the past, ad nausem apparently, the optics of this is off the chart.  I understand that town staff’s salaries need to be reviewed.  When youre talking about union adjustments, thats fine, seeing how theyve been negotiated in the past.

Where MY problem comes in, town council is put on the same pay grid as town staff.  WRONG!  Plain wrong!

Added to that, town council has already increased their pay just after they were elected in 2007.  Only one councillor at that time voted against it, and that was someone who attending their first council meeting after a bi-election.

Town councillors should not have the opportunity to increase their salary by votes.  Most municipalities, like Milton, use citizens advisory committees to come up with what their increases should be.  But, in the case of the councillors, the pay increase should take affect the when the NEXT council sits. 

Politics is perception and this wont sit well with Milton taxpayers.  The last 3 years we have had higher than normal increases in our mill rate with what to show for it?  More Milton Transit buses that run empty throughout town that we spent over $3 MILLION dollars in the  last 3 years?  Have there been more roads developed for that money?  Who knows.  But its wrong for town council, not shortly after their LAST increase, to have their salaries increased….AGAIN.

When will it end?  What council needs to do (and maybe someone can help me with the legality of this) is have councillors taken OFF that pay grid and into a grid seperate and distinct from everyone else.  This way, they WONT be able to vote for increases in salaries that would benefit themselves.

Does there need to be an automatic increase in town council’s remuneration?  Should it be on performance based rankings?  IE  They do they job they say theyre going to do?  Hard if not impossible to do that.  But changes on how our elected public representatives need to be made. 

Some might say these increases are minor and they would have an arguement.  Problem is, in case no ones noticed, we are in some pretty tough economic times right now and municipalities need to focus on saving taxpayers dollars not spending more when they can wait.

Here’s Tim’s article in this weekends Champion!

Town council voted Monday to give themselves and the municipality’s 183 non-union staff, including managers, a 2.5 per cent raise at the start of June.

The pay hike isn’t a cost-of living hike but rather a market adjustment, which is done annually and is based on comparable increases given to non-union employees at other similar municipalities, according to staff. The Town’s non-union staff have received an average 2.7 per cent market adjusted raise over the past three years, slightly below increases negotiated with unionized workers.

Generally, such increases for white-collar municipal workers fly under the radar, but due to the economic recession the issue has received more attention from the media. The City of Toronto’s Mayor David Miller announced recently that municipality would be freezing any hikes to non-unionized staff and he, along with some other councillors, would be returning their own pay increases to the City.

Only one Milton councillor decided to discuss the issue Monday night. Ward 3 Councillor Jan Mowbray responded to an e-mail she received from a local resident asking her to vote against the council and staff salary increase.

“I do believe we have an obligation to approve this report because the unionized staff have already received their raise in March,” said Mowbray, arguing she didn’t want to create a problem of inequity between the Town’s workers.

The councillor was referring to three three-year agreements recently bargained by the Town. The 29 unionized staff of the Town’s fire department will receive annual 3 per cent pay hikes this year and the next two years. The 27 staff in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers negotiated annual 2.5 per cent hikes over the same time period, as did the 37 library staff represented by CUPE.

Tim Foran can be reached at tforan@miltoncanadianchampion.com .