Surrey city council cost taxpayers $990,788.24 last year, up from $930,541 in 2017.
That includes the salaries, taxable benefits and total expenses for both the previous council and those elected in October of 2018. For the former council, it also includes separation allowances.
Former mayor Linda Hepner made the most. Her base salary of $122,257 in 2018 was down from $139,023 in 2017. She also received $11,628.21 in other taxable benefits.
From the previous council, the eight councillors made a base salary ranging between $60,000 and $62,000, which is down from &70,830 in 2017.
However, the document shows Mike Starchuk had a base salary of $34,763 for 2018 and expenses of $40,677.79.
City spokesperson Oliver Lum said there was an “entry error” and the separation allowance of roughly $27,000 was put into the taxable benefits column instead of the base salary column.
“It is being fixed. It actually has been fixed on our end, it’s just that the province has to approve it before we can re-post the corrected numbers on the website,” he told the Now-Leader.
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In all, the former council expensed about $151,372.19, up from approximately $116,000 in 2017.
Hepner expensed the most at $30,378.80. That’s up from her 2017 expenses, which were $21,697.
Following Hepner, the next highest spender was Dave Woods, who expensed $18,305.78, which was up from his $10,984 expenses in 2017.
Vera LeFranc expensed $17,808.76, followed by Judy Villeneuve at $15,728.80 and Mike Starchuk at $15,386.46.
Bruce Hayne expensed $14,714.06 and Barbara Steel expensed $13,490.22.
The lowest spenders were Mary Martin at $11,604.57 and Tom Gill at $10,050.52.
Altogether, $139,899.44 was reported to Surrey City Council in other taxable benefits in 2018.
For the current council, Mayor Doug McCallum made $20,908.95 as a base salary in his first two months in office. His received $3,442.50 in taxable benefits.
Seven of the current councillors made a base salary of $10,663.64, while Councillor Brenda Locke’s base salary was $12,142.04.
Click here to see the full 2018 report.
Click here to see the full 2017 report.
Click here to see the full 2016 report.
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