In an age of social media and most residents with access to email, workload for City of Powell River elected officials has increased exponentially, but the pay has not kept pace, according to mayor Dave Formosa. Now Formosa is asking council to rethink remuneration.
“You don’t get into this to make money. You get into this to serve,” said Formosa at a finance committee meeting Thursday, October 22. “But it’s time for a frank discussion.”
In 2006, council passed Bylaw 2127, which provides a base $14,000 per year for councillors and $35,000 for the mayor, plus an annual adjustment based on the BC Consumer Price Index.
“In this day of social media, the job of a councillor is 10 times more now,” said Formosa. “You get emails day and night, seven days a week and people want a response. You feel this duty to respond.”
He added that his constituents are less shy about voicing their opinions online than at public meetings or in person.
Formosa said he knows mayor and council are remunerated at about the provincial average, but he’s not interested in those comparisons.
“I don’t care where we are on the list,” he said. “What I do know for a fact is that when I was a city councillor I worked pretty well full-time at it out of my own office. I dove in.”
He added that while that was his choice, he wouldn’t want rates to be so high that people would run to become career city politicians, but not so low that they drive talented people away either.
The renumeration bylaw also covers the cost of transportation for elected officials who travel on official business, out-of-town accommodations, a $90 per diem allowance and a mileage rate if officials travel in their own vehicles.
Councillor Rob Southcott noted that while he is able to take time away from his job for the city’s business, that time is unpaid by his employer. Southcott works as the station chief for the BC Ambulance Service in Powell River. Several of his last few pay stubs have had half the amount of his regular salary, he told the committee.
“Smaller communities pay less because the tax base is smaller,” said councillor Maggie Hathaway, “but the workload is the same. I think that should be recognized in some way and that $14,000 for a year is not that much.”
Formosa told the finance committee that it was time not only to think about raises, but also to consider the city providing cell-phone coverage.
“I think it’s something that we should give ourselves an allowance for,” he said.
He added that he routinely has phone bills in the several-hundred-dollar range, of which 80 per cent are to do with city business.
Several committee members voiced the opinion that while they did not feel like their phone bills needed to be covered by the city, the mayor’s should be, at least in part.
It was not until the discussion at the meeting shifted to the city’s current $1-million budget shortfall that Formosa declared, “I guess I’ll keep paying my phone bill.”
