Port Coquitlam residents will pay more to city council members because the federal government is taking more taxes from them.
PoCo city council is set next week to increase the salaries for the mayor and councillors starting in 2019 after the federal government removed the Municipal Officers’ Allowance.
Last year’s federal budget peeled back the decades-old tax break for elected officers — meant to cover the expenses of their public service work — by merging their allowances with income. The elimination of the tax-free allowance, which applied to one third of a councillor's pay, also affects MLAs and school board trustees.
PoCo's proposed pay change comes after the city’s finance and budget committee on Tuesday voted 6-1 to offset the federal changes. If approved at next Tuesday’s city council meeting, it will mean the mayor will receive approximately $25,000 more a year — bringing that salary to about $129,000 starting Jan. 1, 2019 — while city councillors will get an additional $5,115 each, raising their remuneration to $46,219.
Karen Grommada, PoCo’s director of finance, said the increases will total $60,000 a year to cover the extra wage and benefits costs.
The salary change — happening as the city prepares its 2018 budget — means the politicians’ after-tax pay “will be approximately the same,” Grommada said.
“This doesn’t put an additional cent into any officials’ pockets,” said Mayor Greg Moore, who announced last November he is not running for re-election. “It just makes them whole, with the next council receiving the same remuneration as this council.
“We want to make sure the next group of officials isn’t taking a pay cut on Jan. 1,” he said.
But PoCo Coun. Dean Washington, who chairs the finance committee and voted against the salary increase because he said it should be decided by the next council (civic elections will be held in October), said getting rid of the tax-free allowance is a cash grab by the Liberals.
“They need more money to pay for everything,” Washington said, adding, “It’s just another form of downloading on the municipal taxpayers.”
PoCo Coun. Mike Forrest concurred. “It’s something that we have had directed to us… and we need stability in our revenue.”
“We need to keep our take-home pay the same,” Coun. Glenn Pollock said. “It may be interpreted by some as a raise but the federal government has changed the rules and we won’t get the federal tax exemption any longer.”
Coun. Laura Dupont said it’s unfair to have to have issue land in the lap of the new council. “My thought was to deal with it now and get it over with,” she said. “Essentially, the changes that Revenue Canada made would mean councillors would face an approximately $5,000-a-year pay cut. I would go so far as to say that considering the amount of hours on average we work that that feels punitive.”
“I’m amazed as a first-term councillor how much work there is to be done and in my experience it is not a part-time job as most would believe,” Dupont said.
(Requests for comment from councillors Darrell Penner and Brad West were not returned before The Tri-City News’ print deadline yesterday).
In a statement to The Tri-City News, Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam Liberal MP Ron McKinnon said the one-third tax exemption “is unfair and provides an advantage that other Canadians do not enjoy.”
Mayor Moore said it’s never a good time to increase council pay. “If you do it just after the election, people will say you weren’t transparent before the election,” he said. “And if you do it before, then people will say you should let the new council make that decision.”
PoCo is one of the first municipalities in Metro Vancouver to broach the topic: Coquitlam and Burnaby city councils have yet to make a decision while Port Moody has deferred the matter to its new council, following the Oct. 20 election.
