[LINK] "If anything, city councillors should make more"

[rfmcdonald]

Via lpetrazickis I've been referred to a Marcus Gee article in The Globe and Mail arguing that members of Toronto City Council should be paid more.

Under an arrangement made in 2006, councillors get an automatic cost-of-living raise at the start of every year, based on inflation measured by Statistics Canada's Toronto Consumer Price Index. In other words, their annual raises prevent them from losing ground, but no more. In effect, their salaries are frozen in real terms for good.

This year's 2.42 per cent raise is less than the 3 per cent average that police, firefighters and transit workers got in recent contracts. It brings a councillor's salary to $99,153, less than many high school vice-principals make. The mayor of Canada's largest city, presiding over a government with a budget of $8.2-billion, would make $166,985 had he taken the raise.

Those are far from princely salaries for leading officials in the public service. Trolling through the highly entertaining Public Sector Salary Disclosure lists, released by law every year, I found that Toronto's supervisor of golf courses makes $102,688.54, around $3,500 more than a councillor. The farm implements co-ordinator for the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs makes $111,118.26 and the general manager of the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers Board takes in $122,225.33.

[. . .]

But, however reasonable they may be, politicians' salaries are always a punching bag, especially in hard times. Even the politicians themselves can't stop themselves from swinging at it. In city council, 17 of 44 councillors are backing a special meeting to roll back this year's raise. Even if that doesn't happen, 18 councillors, plus the mayor, are declining the raise on principle, making those who do keep it look greedy.

Makes sense to me. Of course, there's Toronto's ongoing budget crises to take into consideration, but still.