Last night Milton Town Council approved a citizens committee & staff recommendation to increase the salary of councillors by $5000 to be phased in over a three year period. First third retroactive to Jan 1, 2012 and the other two thirds on Jan 1, 2013 and Jan 1, 2014.
As Ive stated many times as private citizen, and here again, and then as a candidate for public office and as an elected official, I am not in favour of increasing our salary for the current term. There was a motion put forward by myself and Councillor Rick Malboeuf last night asking for an amendment to the recommendation to in essence “defer” the increase until the next council. This way our current council wouldn’t benefit from a decision like this and be as transparent as possible.
This motion was voted down 8-2, with myself and Rick Malboeuf being the only to support the amendment.
You can follow some of the discussion happening on the Hawthorne Villager here. Many on that forum are in support of such an idea, and oddly enough some of my fellow councillors, while they were private citizens, agreed with me.
Now dont get me wrong. The increase is small in the grand scheme of things. I do believe that politicians at all levels should be paid fairly for their work. There are some days I joke to myself “they dont pay me enough” but I knew that going into this job.
The process was designed to “take the politics out of it” but as council raised their hands to increase their own pay, politics jumped right back in. I have informed the HR department of the Town of Milton to not apply the salary increase to my pay. Its a choice I made last year at this time, when no other councillor did the same. I haven’t accepted a pay increase because I feel so strongly that we shouldn’t be doing so. You can see in the chart below that my salary for 2011 was the same as in 2010.
This amount is small $5,000 per councillor but amounts to a 17% pay increase for us. Granted its phased in over 3 years but it still amounts to the same.
What each councillor decides to do is up to them. I have been consistent through this process from day one and I plan on continuing to be consistent with my belief that this is YOUR money and we should treat it as such.
Now if I chose to run for the next election in 2014, I will accept the salary as it is. I will let the voters decide whether or not I deserve an increase in pay. That’s how it should be done.
I’d appreciate your feedback and comments here or on Twitter at @Mike_Cluett
I’ll see you at the doors.