Raises, Raises Everywhere (At Least For Politicians)!!!

It all seems to have begun with the District of Lantzville giving themselves big raises (44% for the Mayor, 37% for Councillors over 3 years, plus conferences) early last year, followed by Abbotsford (9.1% for the Mayor, 7.2% for Councillors, plus stipends and conferences), Nanaimo (24% for the Mayor, 11% for Councillors over 3 years), Parksville (17% for the Mayor, 18% for Councillors+COLA [cost of living allowance]), Port Coquitlam [2010] (27% for the Mayor, 42% for Councillors), Prince George (0% for the Mayor, 29.5% for Councillors), Revelstoke (27% for the Mayor, 27% for Councillors) and most likely others (they just don't seem to be able to help themselves!). It must be nice to be in a position to give yourselves a significant raise on a salary of which a third is tax free, especially when most working people are lucky to be getting 'cost-of-living' increases (~3%/yr). To shed some more light on this subject, here is a piece I wrote and submitted to the Nanaimo Daily News, which they almost published as submitted (they just don't seem to be able to help themselves either, usually making both meaningless, small changes and/or omitting significant phrases/sentences). For example, they edited out the phrase about "realizing that any one of them doesn't actually have to do anything". I guess they just weren't ready to accept the sad truth of that statement:

Dear Editor,
Re: Raise in pay for city council gets the O.K., Daily News, Sept. 20/11

Well, that certainly didn't take long - from Staff Report to voting themselves (sorry, the next Council) a 24% increase over 3 years in less than a week! This all based on wanting to achieve the median remuneration from a list (which doesn't appear in the report) of 12 'comparables'. The problem is that they aren't even comparable in population, with an 84% spread! One would think that the well-paid bureaucrats at Nanaimo City Hall would be able to come up with a better plan than basing such an important decision on population alone. If they really felt this was the best route, at the very least the list should have taken into account other important 'attributes' of a municipality, e.g., the size of their annual budget, the number of full-time employees, etc. Another option that was given short shrift by staff was to form a committee of residents who actually work to earn the money to pay those salaries and have them do some fact-finding and then make recommendations. It would have made eminent sense to actually look at what Council members do (realizing that any one of them doesn't actually have to do anything) to get paid. Interview them, have them fill out a survey - how many hours in meetings, how many issues did they resolve, etc. Remember that Council members need no academic qualifications or specific experience - all you need to do is convince about 25% of the registered voters that 'you're their guy' and voila, the money starts rolling in. The well-qualified and regularly appraised teacher's of B. C. are fighting to see their first raise above cost-of-living in about 8 years based on 'comparables' to other provinces that have them well behind - so why should this work for politicians but not teacher's?

While some of the jurisdictions actually did consider forming a committee of local residents, each found interesting justifications as to why they weren't going to go that route - would have difficulty finding a 'representative' group, not enough time to implement given the 'specialized' nature of the task, committee would probably make the same recommendation as staff, and (reading between the lines) they might decide to cut our salaries, etc.
Finally, even the math-challenged can see that, under this system, every time one Council on the list gives themselves (sorry, I mean the next Council) a raise, they all immediately qualify for another one and round and round it goes!

For details specifically on the Council raises in Lantzville, have a look at my recent piece, http://vigilantz.blogspot.com/2011/05/lantzville-administration-too-big-and.html