Got a call from a lady today who had told me that she was reading on a councilors blog that he was receiving around $2.50 per hour for attending council business and was very surprised. I quote the following:
"As for my wages I receive an honorarium that probably works out to about $2.50 an hour, as for benefits there is none from the Municipality.
I maintain a full time job during the day and when I take time off during the day for Municipal issues I take time and pay off my regular job which pays me more than $2.50 an hour. So as a simple fact I lose money every time I attend a meeting during the day."
Note: Not for one minute am I suggesting that Councilors are over paid in 6 years on council I made less than $14,000 per year. In fact when Councilor Mitchell suggested last fall that Council renumeration should be cut by 5% I spoke against it. (Little surprised that Councilor Mitchell did not suggest that with the present council) Maybe it wasn't a real issue, keep in mine that 5% reduction would have decreased a $4.5 million labour bill by $5,000.
Well unless this policy got changed since I left council the above statement is not really true. Councilors receive an honorarium of $500 per month which at $2.50 per hour would work out to 200 hours put month, I doubt any councilor is putting in 50 hours per week.
In addition Councilors also receive $70 per meeting with the average meeting running about 3 hours so $23.33 per hour, if the meeting turns into a full day (retreats etc) they receive $160 for an average of 8 hours or $20 per hour.
6 comments:
Dean, when I read this I was quite surprised as well, considering like you, I sat on the Landfill Board and know for a fact he is paid by the month, and not by the hour, and I’m pretty sure he is not putting in anymore hours than you and I did when we were on council, which was quite a bit.
If he wants to complain, how would he like it if he sat on council for three years taking all kinds of shit and abuse from the Herald and others in this community and not get paid a single cent? Because of constantly having to pay legal fees brought about by certain members on council ganging up on you, setting you up, in order to harass and intimidate you from doing your job in protecting an ungrateful public from those we now have a pretty good idea were crooks all along. Then he'd have something to complain about! In the meantime he should get his facts and numbers straight because none of us in the know are buying what he is trying to sell.
Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get them, get them right, or they will get you wrong.
OMG Get some calculators in the municipal office!!! Too many mistakes are being made. Council needs to know that 0%tax increase means zero.
You would think Councillor Mitchell would bring that up again. Especially with a new council in place. Unless it really was just Larry playing politics.
Naybe they were using the same calculators they used to figure out the reserves.
These guys should be making a ton on the retreats?
Maybe Mr. Mitchell can make a motion so that they don`t get paid for all their secret meetings-I mean retreats.Oh I forgot, first they need to have a policy on it. Where is Lisa and the Herald? How come we don`t hear anything about these secret retreats? Dean can you tell me if these retreats are suppose to be open to the public? If they are suppose to be open to the general public can I contact Municipal Affairs and complain???
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