A proposed new council remuneration policy will come back to North Battleford city council for a vote next Monday.
A five-member committee has come back with their recommendations on what a new policy should contain. That proposed policy was brought to council for the first time on Jan. 14 and includes changes to the way remuneration is set, as well as penalties to councillors who skip out on meetings.
Until now, remuneration for mayor and council had been tied to the salary of the city manager. As city manager Randy Patrick explained to reporters last fall, that posed a problem as council could potentially vote to increase the city manager’s salary, and by extension give themselves a pay increase as well.
Instead, the new policy would tie remuneration to those of provincial MLAs.
According to the Jan. 14 memo on the new remuneration policy issued by Debbie Wohlberg, director of legislative services, the mayor’s remuneration would be calculated at 70 per cent of the annual indemnity paid to members of the legislative assembly. Councillors would receive 35 per cent of the mayor’s remuneration, and annual adjustments would be made based on the CPI, or consumer price index.
According to 2018 numbers cited in the policy, a Saskatchewan MLA made $96,183; 70 per cent would be $67,328.
Most notable in the new policy is providing for what was described in the public notice as a “mechanism for accountability for non-attendance of meetings.”
There are financial penalties proposed for missing meetings, especially if several meetings in a row are missed.
The proposed penalty for a first-time occurrence of being absent for three consecutive meetings would be $1,000 and be deducted from the monthly remuneration; second offences would result in a penalty of $2,000.
Penalties are also proposed for those who miss six or more meetings a year. An amount of $500 per meeting would be deducted based on the number of meetings missed over the six-meeting threshold.
However, there would be exceptions if the mayor or councillors are away on council business such as Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association or Federation of Canadian Municipalities meetings, or at events where the member is acting on behalf of the City of North Battleford. There is also a provision where the majority of council can agree by resolution not to apply the penalty in cases of serious or long-term illness.
There have been past controversies at City Hall about council members’ absenteeism. At one point, council responded by voting in favour of posting attendance records on the city’s website. Lately, it has been less of an issue.
The policy is still in the draft stage. At their Jan. 14 meeting, council members voted to authorize administration to initiate the public notice period to let residents know the policy will come to council on Jan. 28. Wohlberg has confirmed public notice has now taken place.
At planning committee Monday at city hall, there was a lengthy discussion about the proposed remuneration policy.
One part of the draft that will likely see a change before next Monday is its definition of “meetings.” Under the draft policy “meetings” were defined as including all “council, special council, council committee, budget, long range and strategic planning” meetings.
But it was pointed out those various different meetings could be held very closely together, making it potentially easy for someone to miss three in a row and be penalized.
Councillor Don Buglas expressed the most concern about the provisions, pointing out it could sometimes be difficult for councillors to attend the long range and strategic planning meetings held during the day, especially for councillors who held jobs.
Buglas also acknowledged the need to find a balance.
“We want everyone to be attending, we don’t want someone on council with a 40 per cent attendance rate,” said Buglas.
The indication from City Manager Randy Patrick is that administration will take another look at the definition and possibly make revisions before the final draft comes to council for approval next week.
