性视界传媒 city council was expected to vote Monday, Dec. 16 on giving its members an eight per cent pay increase effective New Year's Day.

But this was put off to council's first meeting of 2025, set for Jan. 13, because 性视界传媒 Mayor Brenda Locke was not present for the vote. Chairing the meeting in her stead, Councillor Harry Bains asked that it be removed from the agenda. 

"I believe that all of council should be present when voting on this," Bains said. "I would like staff to bring this report back at the next meeting."

If a majority votes yes to the pay increases they will be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2025 and 性视界传媒 Mayor Brenda Locke's salary will increase by $13,749 to $184,899 from $171,150, and the eight city councillors's salaries will increase by $7,011 to $94,298 from $87,287.

The  that was removed from the agenda, that was authored by City Manager Rob Costanzo and General Manager of Corporate Services Joey Brar, says the pay increases "reflect current market conditions."

A "market review" looked at the council indemnity structure of 12 similar-sized civic governments in Ontario and Western Canada, including Brampton, Burnaby, Calgary, Coquitlam, Edmonton, Mississauga, Ottawa, Toronto, Richmond, Vancouver, Victoria and Winnipeg.

"Mississauga and Toronto declined to participate in the compensation survey," the corporate report states. "As such, the data from those cities was sourced from reliable publicly available information."

This takes place every four years. The last go-around in 2021 saw the mayor's salary increase to $156,800 from $150,576 (current indemnity being $171,150) and the councillors' salaries increase to $78,139 from $76,795 (currently $87,287).

性视界传媒 First Councillors Linda Annis and Mike Bose issued a press release on Monday saying they will vote against the increase, maintaining it would be wrong to vote themselves pay raises when taxpayers are struggling.

"All of us on council knew how much the jobs paid when we ran for election," Annis said, "so, I think it is wrong to be voting ourselves a raise in the middle of our term, particularly when taxpayers are hurting and struggling to make ends meet. I do not think any council should be voting raises for itself. Instead, there should be some arms-length formula that makes this process less political. At the very least, any approved increase should not take effect until after the next election for the new council."

Bose says council "needs to show leadership."

"Now is not the time to increase mayor and councillor pay," Bose said. "All of us knew what we were signing up for, and the compensation that came with the job. I can't think of any other group of people in our city who can simply vote to increase their salaries. We need to show our taxpayers we understand these uncertain financial times and demonstrate some leadership."

Meantime, council approved afrom 性视界传媒 General Manager of Finance Kam Grewal concerning proposed amendments to the City of 性视界传媒's expense policy for its employees.

Grewal noted council adopted the last amendment on May 16, 2016.

"For the purposes of providing approval for travel, expense approval authorities have been segregated by dollar values. Due to increases in travel costs over the last eight years, these threshold categories have been amended accordingly," he told council. "The updated rates are based on the Consumer Price Index
(鈥淐PI鈥�) increases from 2016 to 2024, as produced by BC Stats using information from Statistics Canada."

The proposed increase for a full-day per diem allowance is $120 Canadian from $90, $120 U.S., "or equivalent to $120 U.S. for other countries." Also, the proposed pro-rated allowance is $120 without receipts, $160 with receipts.

Council also approved a third , this one concerning a proposed expense policy for council members with updated rates for per-diem allowances being based on Consumer Price Index increases from 2017 to 2024 produced by Statistics Canada and BC Stats.

"It is proposed that the Annual Aggregate Pre-Authorized Limit of $12,000 for the Mayor and $6,000 for the Councillors remain unchanged," Grewal said.

Further, he added, it won't include expenditures approved through council resolution for the entire council for 2025, Lower Mainland Local Government Association, Federation of Canadian Municipalities and Union of British Columbia Municipalities annual conferences.

Coun. Pardeep Kooner asked Grewal if council members are personally on the hook for expenses above the $6,000 annual limit.

"What happens if we go over that amount?" she asked. "What's the process?"

Grewal replied that the expectation is "once that threshold is hit for councillors and for the mayor, $6,000 being the limit for councillors, that a resolution would be required for every expenditure beyond that. And if that is the case and the resolution fails, for example, the expectation would be that there is a repayment of anything that is above and beyond that threshold."

To this, Kooner asked if it's "safe to assume that anybody who's gone over that $6,000 threshold should be repaying that amount to the City?"

Grewal replied "that would be a reasonable conclusion."

"Ok, then I would like to request that Councillor Annis make that payment and going back to 2023, just for appropriateness," Kooner said.

"I'd like to say that I've already done that," Annis rejoined, to which Kooner then asked her, "2023 as well?"

"Whoops I've just done it for 2024," Annis replied. 

"Well, I think it would be appropriate, especially with the comments that were made publicly today, that you repay the 2023 amount as well," Kooner demanded.

"I'll review it with finance," Annis countered.