Maple Ridge councillors are bumping up their salaries after going six years without a raise, effective this month.
Council gave third reading May 23 to a bylaw calling for the base salaries of both councillors and mayor to increase each June by the Consumer Price Index rate from the previous year. That will ensure that salaries rise steadily with the cost of living.
Councillors currently make $37,285 a year, plus a car allowance of $2,423.
The mayor makes $92,310 a year, with a car allowance of $7,125.
According to Statistics Canada’s figures, the Vancouver consumer price index in 2016 was 2.2 per cent.
That percentage applied to the mayor’s salary means that starting this June, the mayor’s salary will jump by $2,030 – to $94,340 a year.
A councillor’s salary will jump by $820, to a total salary of $38,105.
In years where the CPI hasn’t increased or decreased, councillors’ salaries won’t change.
But if the CPI goes up in the year previous, so too will council salaries.
Councillors, and their families, also have an extended health care plan with medical, dental, extended health, group life insurance and disability insurance coverage premiums paid for by the city.
The acting mayor, now done on a rotation basis, is a normal councillor’s salary, plus 20 per cent of the mayor’s salary, for however how someone is serving as acting mayor.
Coun. Craig Speirs said however that more discussion needs to be had about politicians’ wages, saying that councillors who are in charge of a billion-dollar budgets, get paid less than a liquor store clerk.
Councillors currently make $37,285 a year, plus a car allowance of $2,423.
The mayor makes $92,310 a year, with a car allowance of $7,125.
According to Statistics Canada’s figures, the Vancouver consumer price index in 2016 was 2.2 per cent.
That percentage applied to the mayor’s salary means that starting this June, the mayor’s salary will jump by $2,030 – to $94,340 a year.
A councillor’s salary will jump by $820, to a total salary of $38,105.
In years where the CPI hasn’t increased or decreased, councillors’ salaries won’t change.
But if the CPI goes up in the year previous, so, too, will council salaries.
Councillors, and their families, also have an extended health care plan with medical, dental, extended health, group life insurance and disability insurance coverage premiums paid for by the city.
The acting mayor, now done on a rotation basis, is a normal councillor’s salary, plus 20 per cent of the mayor’s salary, for however long someone is serving as acting mayor.
Coun. Craig Speirs thinks more discussion needs to be had about politicians’ wages, adding that councillors who are in charge of billion-dollar budgets get paid less than a liquor store clerk.