Despite the fanfare of having a proposed 0% increase for the Region of Halton, their pay might be going up!
Even though Region of Halton staff has gone through their budget line item by line item finding all the necessary cuts to services and programs to ensure there is a politically favourable 0% increase, they still found an opportunity to have an allowance for their salaries and benefits to go up to 1.5% according to Tim Foran at the Milton Canadian Champion.
This is what frustrates taxpayers to no end. 2009 hasnt been the greatest year. Just looking at Milton alone, 3 major employers in the Town of Milton have closed up shop putting hundreds of people out of work. We have all experienced in some way someone that we know who has lost their job due to the economy. There are some signs to show we are slowly making our way through this global downturn but we are not out of the woods yet. Many economists say it will be the middle of 2011 before we get back to “normal” in our ways.
Yet…the public service gets a raise. As I’ve said in the past many times, I am not against paying someone a fair wage or salary. Our public officials are probably in the most underpaid/overworked industry in our country.
I hope the elected officials around the table realize what people will think if they approve this increase. Despite the fact a citizens committee made the recommendation, Regional Council CAN say NO…that will send a message. That committee can come back and say to increase their pay by 100%, they can still say NO.
Take that increase to salaries for council members and put it to something else, and still end up with their desired 0% increase.
Show some common sense and leadership!
To see the executive summary of the 2010 Region of Halton budget, go to pages 20 and 22 of the document. If you’d like to look at the entire budget document for Halton (its a big file) go here.
Tax freeze may not impact raises for Halton staff, councillors
Tim Foran, Metroland West Media Group
December 11, 2009
A zero per cent tax hike budget can be accomplished without freezing wages for Regional employees or council members, according to Halton’s 2010 budget.
The proposed budget, which will go to council for approval this Wednesday, includes money for a possible hike to the salaries and benefits of regional council members of up to 1.5 per cent next year.
That cost-of-living increase, which stems from the recommendations of a civilian committee that reviews council’s compensation, would be about half the average 3.15 per cent salary and benefit increase budgeted for Halton’s own employees.
Compensation for municipal employees makes up a large part of the Region’s proposed $700-million operating budget.
The treasury is budgeting $164 million — more than $1.1 million goes to the 21 regional council members — to cover the cost of wages, benefits, overtime and promotions for its own personnel, a 5.23 per cent increase over this year’s budget.
Approximately half of the Region’s employees, and all of the regional police force, are unionized and the budget includes about 3 per cent increases for their salaries and benefits, based on negotiated collective bargaining agreements and raises given historically.
The City of Toronto, which experienced a strike by its unionized employees this past summer, negotiated just under 2 per cent annual hikes for its staff, excluding police.
Halton Region uses a pay-for-performance system for its non-unionized staff, meaning they generally receive raises in the 0-4 per cent range, according to Treasurer Jane MacCaskill.
The Region has included enough money in its budget to cover about an overall 2 per cent hike for those employees.
Salaries and benefits in the office of Halton’s top bureaucrat, CAO Pat Moyle, are budgeted to rise 8.2 per cent over this year to just under a half-million dollars. The treasurer confirmed much of the $20,000 increase is attributable to the promotion of one of Moyle’s two staff.
As personnel matters are dealt with in private, the salary for Moyle — whose performance is reviewed by a sub-committee of regional councillors — isn’t released until the Province puts out its ‘Sunshine List’ of public service employees making more than $100,000 during the previous year, in the spring.
Moyle earned $250,000 in salary and taxable benefits in 2008.
If the 2010 budget passes, the salaries and benefits for Halton Region’s 20 councillors will have risen an average of 2.4 per cent annually between 2008 and 2010, primarily due to a market adjustment raise they received at the beginning of this year.
Compensation for the current council’s first year in office, in 2007, was approved by the previous council in September 2006. Several of those who approved the compensation were re-elected.
The base salary of a regional councillor before benefits was about $43,000 this year, although they also receive salaries from the lower tier municipalities where they work. The base salary for Halton Regional Chair Gary Carr was about $157,000 in 2009.
This is a broken record. They say they give a crap about the taxpayer and then slide in stuff like this. Im not naive to think they all huddle around the table and say “lets put through a pay increase and hope no one finds out” because someone always DOES find out. ONE of them need to have the guts to say “this is wrong, and IM Voting against it.”
Pundits and candidates like yourself can shout at the moon but the problem is once they get in, they fall in line like the rest of them and are never heard from again.
The more things change the more they stay the same. These people just dont get it do they? From squaking about paying for library hours we dont need…to more money in their pockets and the public service pockets…it drives me nuts.
We the taxpayers have to scrimp and save every day to make ends meet and these guys get their increases every year and for what? Theres nothing to say that theyre doing the job they are being paid for and only every 4 years do we get a chance to say anything about it.
Wicked circle and nothing seems to change. I hope ONE of these councillors says something about the budget increase for their pay and asks to have it removed. If they do, Ill be surprised.