Vancouver looking into compensation changes for councillors, Park Board members
Posted February 3, 2015 11:41 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Vancouver City Council is considering a motion for changes to way councillors and Park Board members are compensated.
“It’s a new era,” says Vision’s Geoff Meggs who tells us the rising volume of emails and phone calls are increasing the workload for those who sit on council.
He says the changing duties for deputy mayor and acting mayor, and as the creation of a council representative position are also factors.
“We thought it was timely to take a look at the whole formula that has been used for about 20 years and see if it needs updating. It was based on the long form census which we don’t have in the same form anymore. You know, we have seen the arrival of cell phones and email and all that kind of thing since the last review so it seemed like a good time.”
Changes in compensation may not only be in the form of wages; they may also take the form of things like benefits.
“[It] may not be very significant, in terms of wages and larger in resources. They may say yep some kind of a change in the formula is warranted and there might a raise there and it will include the Park Board, where there hasn’t been any raise whatsoever for over 20 years,” explains Meggs.
He says they hope to have an independent review on the proposal back to council by June, adding the sooner this is resolved the better, as members are already doing the extra work without being paid for it.
Councillors currently make $67,994 per year , and part-time Park Board members are paid $8,000 annually.
