(Submitted/City of Meadow Lake)

By Nicole Reis

Council Indemnity Committee

Council to appoint volunteer committee to review their wages

Feb 12, 2020 | 8:25 AM

Council passed a motion at their latest meeting Monday to accept a recommendation which would appoint local volunteers to review councillor wages and exemptions.

According to city staff, changes to the Federal Payroll Tax in 2018, removed income tax exemptions where one-third of city officials wages were tax exempt. Now, all city official wages are taxed according to federal standards as a method to encourage citizens to participate in local government.

Deputy mayor, Conrad Read suggested council establish an independent committee to review the council’s compensation policy in accordance with the Citizens Review Committee mandate; that is to adopt a recommendation of the committee, provided they fall with the mandate guidelines.

City Manager, Diana Burton told council , a community review committee was an employed practice during the 2016 election year. In the 2020 fall election, council intends to take the same approach in deciding a fair and unbiased income for city officials.

“The idea behind a community committee, is for council to remove themselves from the process of reviewing their own remuneration,” she said.

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Burton went on to say, the review committee will be directed to consider how rates are currently paid to the mayor and council compared to communities of similar size, how rates currently paid compare to the duties and expectations of those offices, whether the current rate structure should be altered in any way, and whether any additional support should be provided to mayor and council for them to carry out their duties as elected officials.

Part of the guidelines stress the responsible use of taxpayer funds by the city while having the ability to attract and retain effective members of council.

Coun.Curtis Paylor said during the meeting, over the last election period, the current council did not accept a wage raise where a majority of surrounding city councils did.

“This council is one of the anomalies, I think. When we removed the tax exemption for elected officials, a lot of councils around, compensated themselves to adjust that loss of income for councillors. This council did not,” he said.

Coun. Glen Winkler told meadowlakeNOW, at one point, all elected officials were allowed to consider one third of their income as non-taxable. In 2018, the Feds made a change where all elected official incomes were 100 per cent taxable as a way to encourage citizens to participate in local government.

“When that happened, last year then a lot of council said elected officials weren’t taking home as much as they used to and council never voted to make up the difference, so everybody took a bit of a hit to serve on council,” he said.

City officials can either accept or reject the community review committee recommendations.

“Last time [2016], they recommended a bunch of high increases in wages and it got voted down,” Read said.

According to Burton, four volunteers and city clerk, Jessica Walters, will sit as administrator to provide information to the committee. The committee dissolves after they submit their recommendation.

The city will look for an array of community members to sit on the committee and submit recommendations by August.

The recommendations will be implemented after the November election.

If you are interested in participating in this committee, contact Jessica at cityclerk@meadowlake.ca or 306-236-3622 by March 13, 2020.

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nicole.reis@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @nicolereis7722