Colwood council is set to get a more modest pay increase this year after approving a new council remuneration formula Tuesday (April 11).
This follows the earlier repeal of a similar formula revamp which resulted in a higher pay increase approved by the previous council.
In a unanimous decision, council directed staff to draw up the formal bylaw establishing the mayor’s pay as the median of that of 20 comparator municipalities in the province, and councillors’ pay as half of the mayor’s pay.
That bylaw, which will need to be approved and adopted at a later date, will see the mayor’s pay for 2023 retroactive to Jan. 1 increase to $55,785 from $35,436 as it currently stands, while councillor pay will increase to $27,892 from its current $17,718.
The current figures factor in an annual cost-of-living adjustment, which increased remuneration compared to 2022 automatically.
READ MORE: Colwood council repeals controversial pay increase
The new remuneration formula will retain annual adjustments based on the Statistics Canada annual Consumer Price Index rates for the Greater Victoria region, and will also face a more detailed review in the third year of each council’s four-year term to ensure the rates continue to be competitive with the comparator municipalities.
The new list of comparators consists of Central Saanich, Comox, Duncan, Esquimalt, Gibsons, Ladysmith, Langford, Metchosin, North Saanich, Oak Bay, Parksville, Port Alberni, Powell River, Qualicum Beach, Saanich, Sidney, Sooke, Victoria, View Royal and White Rock.
According to a report by Jo MacDonald, a human resources consultant hired by the city to conduct a review of council remuneration, those comparators were selected based on criteria set by council, including population, geographic area, population density, operating budget, service responsibilities and number of councillors.
MacDonald was hired by the city on council’s direction – at a cost of around $4,000, according to Mayor Doug Kobayashi – after council voted in December 2022 to repeal a previous and controversial attempt to update the formula based on the recommendation of a citizen committee established and the adopted by the previous council shortly before October’s municipal election.
That formula would have seen the mayor’s pay in 2023 increase to $61,054, based on a rate of $3.22 per Colwood resident, and councillor pay to $30,527.
Kobayashi made good on a campaign promise when he championed repealing that remuneration change, which he voted against as a councillor on the previous council, arguing at the time the citizen committee did not follow all of the Union of B.C. Municipalities best practises for setting council pay, and as a result came up with a recommended pay increase which Kobayashi argued was unreasonably high.
“This is the only place where you get to approve your own wages, and it’s very uncomfortable for me,” said Kobayashi during Tuesday’s meeting. “At least I can now say we actually followed a darn good process … I felt it was a lot more professionally done and the numbers were, thank god, lower than what was recommended before.”
Staff told council an estimated additional $81,000 would need to be added to the 2023 budget to accommodate the new pay rates, and options on how to accomplish that – likely either through a slightly higher tax rate increase or through surplus withdrawals – would be presented for council along with the formal remuneration bylaw.
READ MORE: Central Saanich council rejects bylaw dealing with council pay increases
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