Mayor and some councillors reject raises voted in with Fort McMurray task force

[Melissa Blake, mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, speaks to media about the re-entry of residents to Fort McMurray, Alta. on June 1, 2016. REUTERS/Topher Seguin]

Mayor Melissa Blake, who rose to national prominence during the Fort McMurray wildfire, plans to reject her raise after a bylaw creating a recovery task force passed at a Wood Buffalo city council meeting Tuesday night.

“I was elected to do this job in whatever form it came, for the wage that I was set to receive,” Blake told Yahoo Canada News. “I knew the day I got elected what the salary would be.”

The Alberta municipality includes the City of Fort McMurray, devastated by last month’s wildfire that forced nearly 90,000 people to flee. The Wood Buffalo Recovery Committee will “exercise governance and policy oversight over all aspects of recovery and rebuilding arising from the destruction,” according to the June 8 meeting minutes.

The approved raise would push the mayor’s annual salary from roughly $123,000 to $150,000, while more than doubling part-time city councillors’ salary to $75,000 a year and the newly-made full-time councillors’ to $150,000. Previously, all 10 councillors worked part-time for approximately $36,000 annually.

The hikes would give the full-time councillors a higher base salary than councillors in Canada’s major cities as well as the capital cities of each province and territory, Fort McMurray Today reports.

The full-time councillors are Keith McGrath, Sheldon Germain and Allan Vinni. McGrath told Fort McMurray Today that he would only take his original $36,000 from the municipality, as his employer Aecon would continue to pay him his full salary.

The bylaw passed 7-4, with the mayor voting against, after voting for a failed amendment to strike all mention of salary and defer the compensation decision to a separate committee.

“I’ve just been deeply dissatisfied with the process that we’ve used to get to this point,” Blake said. She’s not opposed to the task force and is happy it exists, but clarified that she is not a member but can sit in on the meetings.

“If there’s something the council will need to make a decision on, then we will get involved,” she said. “[The task force] is something we definitely needed to have.”

Blake acknowledged that the newly-made full-time councillors are expecting to have to work all day, every day on the task force. She said the rest of the council, the majority of whom have full-time day jobs, will likely be expected to accommodate additional daytime meetings and responsibilities.

“[Taking a salary increase] comes down to the personal choices,” she said. “But of course they’ll be doing more work than me.”

Her position as mayor includes being a representative and “figurehead” at evening and weekend events, she said.

Councillors Tyran Ault and Jane Stroud also announced after the meeting that they would turn down their part-time salary increases. Ault was the one to move to amend the bylaw and keep the salary decision separate.

Mayor Blake acknowledged taxpayer concerns over councillors voting in their own pay raises.

“When you’re looking for a job [as a citizen] and you’re watching people make decisions about their own salaries, I think it causes consternation,” she said.

The Canadian Press reported that the committee will start work Wednesday and that six members of the public will be selected to join.

Councillors Keith McGrath, Sheldon Germain, Allan Vinni, Colleen Tatum and Ault have not yet responded to requests for comment.

Salary review

The salary increase will be reviewed in December 2017 and renewed if necessary. Paige McPherson, Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, says this is an important part of the bylaw, though it would be preferable if the salaries automatically reverted back.

“I’ve had some people contact me questioning whether raising the wages was necessary," McPherson says. "The raises were quite substantial, so I can understand why people would have concerns.”

She says the councillors who have rejected the increase deserve praise for having the taxpayers in mind, as does the mayor.

“The councillors should not be voting on their own pay increases.”

McPherson says the taxpayers would prefer the separate committee, also suggesting that a citizen’s assembly would have been a good tactic to determine the increase.