So, the District of Squamish wants a raise. Either by omission or otherwise, several points have come to light that should be laid out and, with this info, a more informed opinion can be arrived at.
1. First, council’s wages are indexed so they get an increase every year. It seems to be represented that it has been a long time coupled with an increase in workload since the last increase. The ones re-elected were well aware of the amount of work required and ran again.
2. A full one-third of the salary is tax free (that is major).
3. A benefit package that exceeds $5,000 per year.
4. Every expense is fully reimbursed and additional salary is drawn from the SLRD and that affects a few of them.
To compare the wages with Whistler and West Van and other communities listed is absurd. Exactly what do we have in common with the two most affluent communities in the province? To quote Mark Twain there are “lies, damned lies” and statistics.
If the staff were to choose communities more in line with ours (population wise, economic activity) these people are between 20 to 50 per cent overpaid. In my opinion, a wage increase is not warranted for the tax and spend protocol occurring.
Take off you beer goggles. The wage and the work required are two separate issues and not related – get to work.
This council has demonstrated a tax and spend mentality, with large tax increase and utility increase, and that doesn’t earn any kind of increase. The staff is presenting this to the council and maybe the council will reward them in the future.
The Squamish Chief ran a correction of Helmut Manzl’s column about managers. What is the difference? They have increased the headcount by 10. These are not operations people who provide benefit to taxpayers, but head office staff. Spin it how you think we will accept it, but the muni has hired 10 new people inside the muni – call them whatever.
A while back they shuffled the deck a bit with a saving to the taxpayer of $50,000. Tell me who at the muni with benefits and who makes $50,000. Give the person a new title and possibly a raise and then claim to be streamlining the system, no oversight.
Who checks this to see if these savings are realized? You certainly can’t tell by reading the financial statements.
If you want better than a snowball chance in hell to be re-elected I’d strongly advise you to vote against a raise and you better be very vocal. You have lost trust of some taxpayers and to repair that is difficult at best.
Dave Colledge
Brackendale
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