Strathmore town council approves changes to compensation

By Miriam Ostermann, Associate Editor

With the emerging end of the federal tax exemption for Canadian mayors and councillors, Strathmore’s taxpayers are on the hook for the difference in local council’s remuneration.
Starting on Jan. 1, 2019 elected municipal officials across the country will no longer be able to claim a one-third federal tax exemption that was implemented for officials in lieu of claiming expenses related to their responsibilities and duties.
With the passing of Bill C-44 in March 2017, the exemption was eliminated, leaving Strathmore’s local officials in favour of increasing mayor and council’s wages to mitigate the loss sustained by the one-third tax-free benefit elimination.
However, council also stressed addressing an increase in eligible per diem amounts to 15 days from four days per year, as well as conducting a review of council’s remuneration in the third year of council’s term.
During the regular Strathmore town council meeting on Nov. 21, council members, with Mayor Pat Fule absent, voted in favour of the amendments to Policy 1806 – Council Remuneration Policy – for a total of roughly $57,000.
While Councillor Bob Sobol agreed with the supplementation of salaries to accommodate the loss of the federal government tax benefit, he failed to see eye-to-eye with the rest of council regarding the urgency of addressing per diem increases and conducting a review until further consultation at the beginning of 2019.
“I think this is a complicated issue that there’s a variety of opinions on and I can’t support the motion, either as stated by administration or as provided by Councillor (Jason) Montgomery, because I think there’s still a lot of work left on this,” said Sobol. “I think a more in-depth discussion and a gathering of opinions from the task force that’s been put together for this purpose has to happen before we’re at a point where we’re going to do some voting.
“My personal view is that we should vote tonight on the issue of the one-third tax-free benefit. That’s a fair issue to deal with based on the fact that this was part of our salary when we took office and has been removed by the federal government. I just don’t see a reason to rush into this. If I had my way, the effect on the budget would be extremely minimal and the biggest part would be the one-third tax-free benefit.”
Fule and Montgomery were tasked in fall 2018 to establish a task force to conduct a review and provide council with recommendations for changes to council’s remuneration.
Strathmore’s town councillors and mayor receive a base salary to accommodate attendance at regularly-scheduled council meetings and one committee of the whole meeting monthly. Not covered as part of the base salary is attendance at conferences, seminars, training sessions, forums, meetings and conventions where the tax-free benefit allotted a claim of maximum $4,000 per year.
As a result, council approved a maximum of $5,000 per council member plus benefits – out of which $3,000 make up the one-third tax-free benefit amount – and nearly $9,000 plus benefits for the mayor. Together with the additional amendments proposed for Policy 1806 – such as costs for a third-party review – council approved a total cost of approximately $57,000.
“The only real changes that we’re making are to the one-third portion of our salary that we will be losing in January. The second is the main portion to our daily per diems which, as we’ve presented a few times before, speak to the diversity of our council,” said Councillor Tari Cockx. “Some of us work, some of us have children, some of us can’t get away and our ability to lose income is an impairment on our part. So what we are trying to amend is the fact that we won’t be losing money from other jobs or our family takeaway from our family’s income.”
Under Policy 1806, the base salary for Strathmore’s council members is $32,367 annually and $59,027 per year for the mayor. Per diem rates can be claimed up to $3,000 a year per council member for $100 for less than four hours a day, or $200 for four hours or more. Councillors are also presented with conference travel and subsistence allowances of an annual budgeted allowance of $5,000, and $8,000 for the mayor, and a business travel and subsistence allowance for an annual allowance of $5,000 for the mayor and $1,500 for councillors. Members of council can also choose to participate in benefits coverage.
Although Sobol pressed council to bring the discussion back in January regarding per diem rates and the review, Councillor Lorraine Bauer disagreed with the additional wait time, stating she hasn’t been compensated for at least five days and the numbers are starting to add up.
“What we are looking at here is a new council that has a new fresh outlook and is really eager to serve the public. I can say in my own specific instance, even this week, I’ve already put in well over 20 hours as deputy mayor and that is of course part of my job, but we haven’t even addressed that part in the remuneration,” said Bauer.
“We’re only talking about the additional committee meetings that we’re going to, for the opportunity for professional development, and we’re taking a budget that is already there and adding a thousand dollars to it so that we can access it rather than going to a conference using it for travel, we are looking at using it per diem.”
However, while council members now have the option of greater compensation, Councillor Denise Peterson emphasized the need for the claims to be shared publicly and assured the public that each council member still has the decision on how much to claim.
Town of Strathmore administration told council the information will be made public on the Town of Strathmore website.
“This is still the purview of individual councillors to spend or not to spend and so that is something that gives the community the capacity to closely examine the performance of their elected officials and make judgments relevant to the service that they get,” said Peterson. “Having said that, I think it’s absolutely critical that we have that council report card that we talked about earlier being published on a monthly basis on our website.”
Council approved the amended Policy 1806 with the additional changes on Nov. 21. Sobol voted in opposition of the motion. The policy passed with a five to one vote.