Heated debate at Calgary City Hall over pay recommendations

Calgary’s city councillors ended up agreeing with some of the recommendations from a committee regarding their pay, but when it came to disagreements, they didn’t hold back.

“This is a bad report,” Ward 11 Coun. Brian Pincott said at one point during the debate Monday, as council eventually agreed with three of five recommendations, amended one and scrapped another.

The volunteer Council Compensation Review Committee took six months to conduct their report, comparing Calgary to several other Canadian cities and how their municipal leaders are paid.

The committee recommended cutting Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s down six per cent to just over $200,000 and keeping councillor pay the same at $113,416.

Council agreed with both, but heavily debated – and often challenged – the suggestion of eliminating transition allowance, as well as if they should vote every year on potential pay increases or decreases, as opposed to the current practice of once per term.

Committee Chair Choi Sun said regarding allowance, it ultimately came down to councillors knowing they’re working on a fixed term and since they know when their term will be done, they should plan accordingly.

They also based the decision on their pay, their pension and referenced provincial-level changes to MLA transition allowances.

But many councillors pushed back, saying they don’t actually know the end until Election Day and they also can’t look for work while they’re councillors because it would be a conflict of interest.

Other counterpoints were that it can be very difficult for elected officials to find work once they’re out of office, they’re unable to apply for employment insurance and even if it wasn’t a conflict of interest to look for work, councillors are burned out after campaigning.

At one point, Ward 14 Coun. Peter Demong apologized for being antagonistic, but still stood by his position.

“It seems odd that you’re picking some comparable, but not others,” he said.

As for the idea of voting every year on salary, Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra said that could lead to a deterrent for getting people to run, because there’s always going to be tremendous pressure for politicians to lower their salaries.

“It’s a race to the bottom,” Carra said.

In the end, council amended the voting recommendation, opting to vote on pay once per term before a city election based the Alberta Weekly Earnings formula and besides Ward 4 Councillor Sean Chu, all voted against eliminating the allowance.

“I think there were some comments by some of the members that raised some concerns about some personal bias and I think that that was reflected in some of the conversation,” Deputy Mayor and Ward 8 Coun. Evan Woolley said.

Ward 6 Coun. Richard Pootmans went as far to call it a ‘negative report’ because of it pointing out Calgary’s municipal leaders are among the highest paid in the country.

He argued that if you compare how many constituents each councillor has, it works out to being middle of the road and said how many resources councillors have has a tremendous effect on their work.

Sun said following the debate that they didn’t take any criticisms personally and that they stand by their suggestions.

“We’re a bit disappointed that not all our recommendations were accepted, but we can understand that compensation is a relatively emotional topic,” she said.

Sun said there was a lot of robust discussions regarding the recommendations amongst the committee itself.

“If the five of us were having the discussions, we knew council would as well,” she said, adding voting every year on pay would’ve allowed councillors to be active on pay, as opposed to being reactive.

“I think what we saw was a lot of questions did come from a place of emotion, which is normal.”