Council favours greater transparency of expenses

By Miriam Ostermann, Associate Editor

In an attempt for greater transparency, town council members are willing to lay it bare and open their ledgers for remuneration and approved expenditures to be published monthly and easily accessible for citizens to keep an eye on some of the public purse.
Councillor Lorraine Bauer brought forth a motion to amend Section 6 of the Council Remuneration and Expense Policy 1806 that warranted for all council remuneration and approved expenditures to be published monthly on the Town of Strathmore webpage, with an amendment to have the capacity to report on the expenditures. While only comments of support were issued at the March 16 regular council meeting, council voted unanimously to table the motion until the Committee of the Whole meeting on April 11 for further discussion.
“It is my viewpoint that as a council member I have a responsibility to my constituents and it’s very important to me that they get to see the professional development opportunities that I am taking and that I’m using at my disposal and how I’m reporting that back to council,” said Councillor Bauer. “I also believe now that we have a webpage that is up and running and a little more user friendly that we can use this opportunity to use this webpage as a means to get out the information to the public how we’re spending our approved expenditures.”
Councillor Jason Montgomery proclaimed that he supports any motion designed to save money or increase transparency, while Councillor Melanie Corbiell noted the importance of communication and transparency to the public and the ability for councillors to justify the claims.
“I’m happy to support this motion especially knowing that Strathmore town council remuneration is commensurate less than most of our municipal and county councillors and I think that it gives our constituents an opportunity to actually see that,” said Councillor Denise Peterson.
Under the Council Remuneration and Expense Policy the Mayor’s remuneration – or money paid for work or service – is $44,000 annually or $3,666 per month. The current cost of living adjustment (COLA) the amount totals $49,616. Councillor remuneration is set at $24,000 per annum or the equivalent of $2,000 per month, with an after-COLA total of $27,064. One-third of the mayor and councillor remuneration is non-taxable.
All members of council may also receive per diems – an allowance or payment for each day to make up for lost wages – when council attends the Alberta Urban Municipality Association (AUMA) conference or the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) conference or spring and fall workshops. The rates are specified in the policy as $100 a day for activities less than four hours and $200 a day for activities four hours or more. The amount is capped at four days annually for AUMA and FCM and four days annually for the spring and fall workshops. Council also has a conference budget for 2018 of $5,000 for councillors and $8,000 for the mayor.
In comparison to communities with similar population size, such as Canmore whose population is 13,992, Strathmore remuneration is considerably lower, particularly regarding the Mayor’s compensation. Canmore pays their councillors $24,142 annually and the mayor receives $79,546 annually. Airdrie also pays the mayor $97,289 and councillors $45,726. Closer to home Chestermere dishes out $65,822 for its mayor and $32,911 for the councillors.
Therefore Councillor Bauer amended her original motion to include for councillors to have the capacity to report on the expenditures. In the end council decided to refer the matter to the next Committee of the Whole meeting on April 11.