Pay Increases and People Who (Might) Need Them

Here’s a bit more politics, to file under ACCOUNTABILITY. Saskatoon’s recent civic election has come and gone, with the incumbent mayor Don Atchinson winning re-election in grand style. His 60% tally in a field of six is much to be admired and may suggest that he’s not “Canada’s Craziest Mayor” as Rick Mercer once insinuated. Or it may be that the other five candidates split the vote. And one shouldn’t forget that voter turnout was around 30%, which means ‘Atch’ only received a vote of confidence from 18% of Saskatoon’s population. Such is politics.

During the election I read a few things here and there but didn’t get involved as much as I wanted. But a Star-Phoenix article made me pause (Unfortunately, this article is no longer available on the web. Damn the web!). The article insinuated that city council had given themselves a 57% raise over the next three years. This got my Marx-influenced brain moving, and so I sent the following email off to every candidate with an email address:

I am a graduate student in university who has been keeping a keen eye on this civic election. I have a quick question that I’m hoping you can help me with. I just read a recent Star Phoenix article that states during this last term city council recently gave themselves a 57 per cent raise over three years. If you get re-elected, and during your next term or two city council votes on another pay increase, will you support it? Thanks.

Of the 16 mayoral and city councillor hopefuls that I emailed, all but one got back to me. A few I emailed back to get clarification, to which they responded. A couple even offered to talk on the phone, one of which I took up on. So is this a formal survey or sociological statistical analysis? No. But the results may interest you.

Firstly, the increase is not nearly as huge as the paper made it seem. The actual increase is 36% over the first three years of the new council session, meaning that in 3 years their salary will be about 40 thousand a year. That’s a number I can live with. For the most part, candidates who were already on council defended the pay raise. The pay scale is dependent on the Mayor’s wage, which is dependent on the MLAs, etc. So the fat-cat stuff starts at the top, of course. They also claimed that the job is a full-time position that is only being paid at a part-time salary, which is again something I can live with.

My comments? First, when council gives themselves a raise appropriate to their job, they should consider later on that other people should also be making a living wage. So I don’t care if you give yourself that pay wage, but don’t start bitching when nurses go on strike. If you’re going to give yourself a 36% increase, prepare to justify why others don’t deserve the same. Second, the new wages are supposed to reflect the fact that councillor positions are now considered a full-time job. However, no one was able to confirm that the positions would be altered on paper as becoming full-time positions. Instead, you end up with people usually work full-time, but don’t actually have to. So future councillors have the opportunity to opt out of work, claiming that it’s only a part-time job, but still make the money. Third, the pay increase takes into account what’s going on in other cities, but not actually what people in Saskatoon think. Fourth, a lot of the people who run for office (the mayor included) are already making a swackload of money with their careers, businesses, etc. Some are also housewives who are married to people making a swackload of money. I understand you want to get paid for the job you do, but think about the type of job you are applying for: City Councillor, to look after the interests of the citizens in your ward. So stop worrying about money and start thinking more about the people! Even if you’re doing a good job, you should still think about this point.

The most thoughtful and honest letter was written by Robert Scheimser. Here’s the bulk, without the salutations and other letter formalities:

Thanks for your question. The simple truth is that I don't know what the answer is to your question. I did not see the article to which you refer. The last time I heard of an increase for councillors was a few years ago, I believe. I know that a 57% increase sounds like a huge increase, but it doesn't seem quite so bad when one considers that the pay of a city councillor was only about $20,000 per year at the time, and most councillors found that they were putting in somewhere in the neighbourhood of 45 hours per week on city matters. This works out to 20K /12 Months / 4.3 Weeks / 45 Hours per week or $8.61 per hour. This was hardly very good pay at all for overseeing a corporation the size of the city of Saskatoon. I believe that part of the rational behind the increase was to make it 'affordable' for good quality people to let their name stand for public office. In other words, it was felt that the renumeration had to compensate councillors for their time at at least a basic level, or else those people with enough management skill and experience to be able to perform the duties of the office would never be able to justify the time required to participate in civic government.

I am saying all of this from memory, so I could be mistaken, but I believe that the councillor's salary was to increase until it reached 45% of whatever the Mayor's salary is. And I believe that the Mayor's salary is set as a function of an MLA's salary.

For these reasons, the question of an increase for city councillors should not be coming up at all at any time in the future. Once the councillor's salary has reached 45% of the mayor's, increases, if they come should only happen if MLA's increase their own salary and the amount goes up as a trickle down effect.

I believe that a councillor's present salary is around $28,000 per year (again from memory), and is scheduled to increase next month (as part of the increase referred to earlier). As far as salaries for elected politician go, these are definitely on the low side. Being a city councillor is no way to get wealthy.

Historically in Canada, elected politicians were (like judges) always supposed to be well paid so that it would be difficult to bribe them. I really question whether this argument is valid at the present time. I have a real problem with 'overpaid' politicians making decisions about things like tax increases, for example. How can someone who doesn't have to live on a small income really appreciate the impact of another 5% here or there on those people struggling to get by? I've often thought that it would be neat if politician's pay was tied to the lifestyle of the least well off members of society. Perhaps then there might be some real motivation to institute some significant positive change. This is probably just wishful thinking, perhaps, but I think it is important that those people in positions of power never allow complacency to set in, especially when it comes to spending other people's money.

Frankly, I am not sure how I would react to the question of an increase. This would depend upon a lot of factors which I am not at present knowledgeable enough about to formulate an opinion on. For example, I am curious to know how city councillors are compensated in other jurisdictions, for example.

While it might be politically expedient to say that I would just simply be against a raise, I don't formulate a position without first doing proper research, and I did want to respond to you immediately. If you want to find out the details of the councillor's salary at present I believe it is available at the following link: http://www.saskatoon.ca/org/clerks_office/elections/responsibilities/index.asp

I just checked out the information from the city clerk's office available at the link above. After having read it, off hand, I don't at present see a need or justification for any further increases, so I suppose that is my answer to your question.

Schmeiser did not get elected. The most passionate letter has to go to Brian Grahame. Keep up that fire, Brian! I personally think we need more ‘people people’ running for office, and a heck of a lot less businessmen. Money isn’t everything…I’ve been told.

You can find the election results at the City of Saskatoon website. The pictures are the responses I received. I debated about posting this, but then decided that they were emails in response to election questions and should be treated as public property. I took out the numbers and such, though, so no pranking! Clicking on the picture twice should make it clear enough to read!