THUNDER BAY – City hall will be spending more on its elected officials after this fall’s municipal election, though councillors insist what they’ll be taking home won’t significantly change.
Thunder Bay city council on Monday night voted unanimously in favour of recommendations produced by an independent citizens committee to increase salaries for the mayor and each of the 12 councillors, with a general raise as well as a bump to offset the loss of a one-third federal tax free exemption that will take effect next year.
The mayor’s salary, which currently sits at $80,000, will get a $5,600 raise when the next office holder is sworn in on Dec. 1. Councillors will go up from $27,000 by $1,890 at the start of their term. Those raises were based on increasing the existing salaries by half the rate of inflation over the past decade.
Beginning on Jan. 1, 2019, the salaries will be increased again to offset the tax exemption cancellation with the mayor reaching nearly $99,000 and each councillor settling at a base of $32,562
The report from administration calculated the cost of the increases at more than $85,000. In 2017, the total salaries and expenses for the mayor and council were pegged at $591,000.
Coun. Trevor Giertuga said the changes to offset the one-third tax free loss doesn’t reflect those who are earning other income, with those raises potentially elevating them into a higher tax bracket.
“People in the community will say that councillors got an increase but if you factor in the fact that people have other forms of income, it turns out the city of Thunder Bay will pay a little more, the other levels of government will get a little more and some of us will actually bring home less,” Giertuga said.
“I did the calculations and I’m not complaining by any means but that’s how it will work out.”
Council salaries had most recently been reviewed in 2008, when the mayor’s pay was upped and councillors received a minimal bump. The citizen committee had been formed last year to review the pay and conducted public surveys and interviews with each of the current incumbents.
The committee’s recommendation to install a provision giving an annual raise at half the rate of inflation going forward was also approved by council.
Committee chair Matt Pearson said the built-in increase reflects the local economic climate while keeping the city from eventually having to make a substantial hike to bring the salaries in line with other municipalities.
“We found that in 1990 the increases that were given to the mayor and council put the mayor and council at the head of the pack in Ontario for remuneration,” Pearson said.
“As years went on it crawled back and now it’s probably lagging. I think this mitigates it so that this will trigger another remuneration committee at some point. I don’t think this will ever put us at the top of the pack but it will certainly keep us from the bottom.”
Coun. Andrew Foulds was optimistic that providing a mechanism for an annual increase would keep future councils from making decisions based solely on public reaction.
“It is certainly my perception that politicians and pay increases become very political and certainly contentious among the citizens,” Foulds said. “The reason why we have an escalator is to try take the politics out of it, I would think.”
Mayor Keith Hobbs stressed people wanting to sit at the table shouldn’t be doing it for the money.
“Truth be told, councillors and the mayor probably make $2 or $3 per hour for all the work they do,” Hobbs said. “All of us and administration work very hard for the city. My average work week in my first four years as mayor was about 100 hours a week and then I’ve cut it down to between 60 and 80 hours a week.”
Note: This story has corrected the salary figures the mayor and councillors will earn beginning on Jan. 1, 2019.
