Since civic politicians will now have to pay tax on the one-third of their salary that used to be tax exempt, Humboldt council will increase its salaries to compensate.
As of Jan. 1, the mayor’s salary will increase by $3,297.67 to $41,353, while a councillor’s salary will increase by $873.12 to $10,946.64. Both are an increase of 8.7 per cent.
Mayor Rob Muench and Coun. Sandy Weyland voted against the increase. Coun. Lorne Pratchler was not present.
“The biggest thing to say is it’s not really a salary increase, it’s just to ensure we’re not getting a massive salary decrease,” said Coun. Michael Behiel. “It’s to stabilize our income because the government has taken away that deduction.”
The federal government announced it would take away the one-third tax exemption, intended to help elected civic leaders to pay for expenses done doing their job, in its 2017 budget.
The increase in salaries will total $10,677.
“We’re asking our citizens to pay more. We just passed a water and sewer rate increase,” Weyland said. “It’s going to be really hard to ask them to pay more for our compensation.”
Muench pondered the idea of striking a committee of citizens to examine a salary increase. Sandra Pauli, the city clerk, told council that when it was last done in 2014, the committee was tasked at examining all aspects of council’s salaries, not just an effect of a tax change.
Coun. Larry Jorgenson said the total amount of the increase was small.
“Just to put it into perspective, the time and effort we’re talking about here, we’re talking about $10,000 here. When we go through the budget, are we going to look for ways to cut $10,000 here and there? No, we’re talking about the big stuff that we’re putting out here.”
Due to how the increase was calculated – it’s based on a 26 per cent increase to one-third of the salary, 26 per cent being the lowest combined provincial and federal tax bracket, those council members whose day jobs push them into the higher brackets stand to still take home less in 2019 than they used to.
Council’s salaries remain locked to the consumer price index, meaning they’ll receive a small increase each year to account for inflation.
