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Council sets lower 2026 property tax hike ... Page 3
No decision on next council’s pay raise ... yet Committee chair complains of backlash to original proposal, councillors’ reactions COLIN SLARK Citizen Staff
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO
City council voted against accepting a committee recommendation to set pay increases through a merit-based system during its meeting Monday, Feb. 2.
elected local officials for the level of public scrutiny they receive. After public backlash, the committee instead recommended council adopt performance-based metrics that would determine pay increases with maximum amounts determined by the median of several communities included in a comparison report. The median salary for mayors was $148,268 while the median for councillors was $58,346.
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If that is deemed unacceptable, the committee recommended that pay increases should be in line with those given to members of the legislative assembly for councillors and provincial cabinet ministers for the mayor. A final report also recommended that the committee be discontinued, citing the treatment members received when the original recommendation was reported in local media. Starting off the conversation at the
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Prince George city council voted to disregard recommendations made by the Advisory Committee on Council Remuneration at its Monday, Feb. 2 meeting and to ask staff to review the bylaw governing their pay. Every four years, the city assembles a committee to review the pay of mayor and council and suggest adjustments ahead of each municipal election. Late last year, the committee initially recommended a 36.7 per cent pay boost for councillors and a 5.9 per cent increase for the mayor, citing a need to bring compensation in line with other municipalities to attract qualified and diverse candidates. Also cited was a need to compensate
Feb. 2 meeting was corporate officer Ethan Anderson, who read the committee’s final report and provided some comments from his perspective. He said he didn’t feel a performance-based system was appropriate as the suggested metrics are flawed and it would be difficult to find one that works. Furthermore, he said tracking any performance metrics would be administratively burdensome for staff. Then, he invited committee chair Denis Gendron to address council. Gendron thanked council for appointing the members and then went into the details for why the committee recommended that it be discontinued going forward. Some committee members were exposed in the media and subject to harsh treatment, especially on social media, he said. One unnamed committee member, he said, almost lost their job over it.
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