Council approves pay raise recommendations

What may be the final chapter in the contentious saga of Orangeville town council remuneration was written Monday night when council approved recommendations of an ad hoc committee that addressed the issue.

When the next council takes its place on Dec. 1, 2010, the mayor will qualify for a $42,000 base salary, while the deputy mayor will be at $25,000 and the five councillors will stand to get $22,600.

This represents a 30.8 per cent increase for the mayor and councillors, who are currently paid $31,798 and $17,294 respectively. The deputy mayor will see his or her salary rise 17 per cent from $20,640 to $25,000.

"The next election is scheduled for November 2010. It is considered essential to attract the widest possible cross section of qualified individuals from the community," the committee said in its report to council. "While election to council fulfills an important public service, it also involves significant personal and time commitments.

"Therefore, the town needs to establish and maintain adequate remuneration for elected officials that neither creates incentives nor constructs barriers."

The remuneration committee put forth a perspective on council salaries that had not been touched on before. It presented them in a per-capita basis, achieved by taking the respective salaries and dividing them by the population of Orangeville and comparing them to eight similar-sized Ontario municipalities.

The current per-capita base salary of Mayor Rob Adams works out to $1.17, which compares to an average of $1.50 among the other eight municipalities. The committee report said the local council was paid, on an average, 35 per cent less per capita than councils in the other towns.

Councillor Gail Campbell commented that the salary recommendations were appropriate, yet voted against them. "Until our economy improves," reasoned Ms. Campbell, "we should not be voting ourselves a raise."

Councillor Gary Kocialek also had his reservations, inquiring whether the committee considered having the raises phased in over the course of the next council's four-year term. "We did investigate that," answered committee chair Bob Long. "We think the salaries are low, now, and they should be increased, now."

Mayor Adams said in an interview that salary raises are "always a difficult issue to deal with and there never is a good time. But the next council should have an adjustment made to its salaries."

Councillor Sylvia Bradley abstained from voting in October, 2008, when council voted themselves salary increases of 61.3 per cent, 49.1 per cent and 36.4 per cent for the mayor, deputy mayor and councillors respectively. She did vote in favour on Monday.

"The way the (voting process) was done and the percentage increases (in October) were a little too much for people to take," Ms. Bradley said, "but the changes (from what the committee recommended) were really not that much. It somewhat validates what we initially contemplated."

Local resident and council observer Chris Thompson, who helped circulate a petition against the initial raises voted in by council, suggested after Monday's meeting that "half the people who signed the petition, may have signed because of the way (the pay raise vote) was done, and not how much it was."

Local resident Don Kidd, who had publicly labelled the latest pay raise proposals "insane," was silent during Monday's meeting.

Afterwards, he said council "was hell-bent on going ahead with the raises, anyway."

He also said the raises should have been phased in and wondered aloud why the council members would "want to put their political careers on the line" by voting to accept the committee's recommendations.

Asked if he was going to run for council in 2010, Mr. Kidd answered: "Who knows what's going to happen?"

Other committee recommendations voted in were changing the mayor's $100 per month mileage allowance to the same 52 cents per kilometre given to councillors, and that council members over the age of 65 years be entitled to benefit packages that such council members are currently ineligible for.