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Pay raise for Russell Township councillors
GREGG CHAMBERLAIN gregg.chamberlain@eap.on.ca
Councillors Amanda Simard, Cindy Saucier, mayor Pierre Leroux , councillors Jamie Laurin and André Brisson.
The original planwas to have it take effect at the end of 2018 and be part of the following year’s municipal budget. Instead, Russell Township council advanced approval to this year for an increase in the stipend paid to each of the four councillors. A resolution, adopted at the Monday, February 1 council meeting, increases the stipend for councillors from the present annual $15,000 to $18,300. This proposal resulted from a consultant’s report for ad- ministration and council on both a salary review for municipal employees and council members, comparing their situation with
their counterparts in the rest of the province. Before the end of last year, council approved administration recommendations based on the report for employee salary-and-benefits adjustments closer to the provincial average, where necessary, to help keep the township competitive for attracting and keeping staff. The report noted that the mayoral sti- pend matches the provincial average for a municipality the size of Russell Township. In some smaller rural communities in the province, the person occupying themayor’s post may even receive more than Russell Township’s mayor. But the annual stipend for local council- lors is well below the provincial average for a community the size of Russell Township. The original resolution approved proposed increasing the annual stipend from$15,000 to $18,300 with the increase taking effect in December 2018. Councillors gave unanimous support to an amendment proposal to advance the date for the increase to the first pay period of 2016 and to also provide a cost-of-living adjustment in future for the stipends of both councillors and themayor. When questioned if the 2016 budget would be able to allow for the increase, Chief Administrator Jean Leduc said that the overall budget should be able to handle the councillors’ stipends change, allowing for possible surpluses and unused funds in other areas of the budget expense allocations. The pay raise resolution does not affect the mayor’s stipend. That stays the same at $35,000 a year and Mayor Pierre Leroux noted that there is no need for any increase. “I’m not looking for an increase for this term,” he said, but also noted that at some point in the future the township may need to revisit the idea of paying for a full-time sitting mayor. “The time requirement for the mayor’s post has increased significantly in the past 12 months,”Mayor Leroux said, adding that the municipality has seenmuch growth during the past few years and that Russell Township may soon reach the point where it cannot afford a part-timemayor’s position anymore. Mayor Leroux noted that themunicipality needs to attract “the best candidates it can get” for the post of mayor. If the position becomes full-time, he observed, then there should be a salary sufficient to also draw in candidates with the skills, who aren’t either already retired or have the advantage of jobs with a flexible schedule, which would allow them to be part-time mayors.
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