A Columbia Shuswap Regional District committee took another step on Aug. 15 towards resolving the contentious issue of what the regional district should pay its elected officials.
Issues included compensation for attending meetings and how best to address the recent removal of a federal tax-free allowance for municipal officials.
The current director’s remuneration bylaw has been in place since 2008 and has seen few adjustments since then.
CSRD financial services manager Jodi Pierce said implementation of the existing bylaw is fraught with difficulties for CSRD staff.
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After further discussion on the issue of remuneration at a board meeting in January 2017, a director’s remuneration review committee was created. The committee is made up of Electoral Area C director Paul Demenok, Area E director and CSRD board chair Rhona Martin and Kevin Flynn and Caleb Moss, municipal directors representing Salmon Arm and Golden respectively. Pierce was also involved in the discussion.
After much discussion, the committee agreed upon a few changes to the bylaw which was defeated in November 2017.
One of the more contentious issues discussed around the committee table at the Aug. 15 meeting was reimbursement for discretionary meetings.
In the current bylaw, payment of meeting stipends is limited to one meeting per day. A number of meetings are listed as eligible for a stipend but the bylaw also says they can apply to any meeting where the CSRD board chair deems it necessary that directors attend or authorizes another director to attend.
The defeated bylaw included a provision for paying directors stipends to attend discretionary meetings, conferences or workshops related to CSRD business with no approval from the board or board chair required. It placed a cap of $2,500 per year in discretionary meeting stipends on electoral area directors, and $500 per year for municipal directors.
Demenok defended the education value he receives from meetings which would be seen as discretionary under the bylaw defeated in October. Flynn suggested the lack of oversight by the board or chair would lead to the practice of “meeting chasing,” or attending as many meetings as possible to maximize the stipend collected.
Also at issue was the lack of a cap placed on the number of directors allowed to attend the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) conference. The FCM conference was listed under the discretionary meetings heading of the bylaw.
Flynn questioned the fiscal responsibility of paying a meeting stipend and travel costs for any director who wants to attend the FCM conference.
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“There have been years where they have gone over-budget on travel expenses, also years it has been under budget,” Pierce said.
By the end of the meeting, a compromise was reached limiting FCM attendance to three electoral area directors as well as the board chair, with the possibility of sending more with board approval.
As FCM was removed from the discretionary meetings and conferences, it was agreed the discretionary meeting allowance should be reduced to $1,500 per year for the electoral area directors. It was also agreed that travel days to and from conferences should be paid at the same rate as days attending the conference; in the rejected bylaw they were to be paid at half the conference-day rate.
Another aspect which featured prominently in discussion of a new remuneration bylaw was how to respond to the withdrawal of a government benefit which formerly allowed elected officials of municipal governments or similar bodies to have up to one-third of their total remuneration paid as an allowance to cover expenses related to their duties; this payment was non-taxable.
Pierce provided the committee with a summary of actions taken by other regional governments in B.C. Increases to remuneration by other regional districts ranged from seven to 14.25 per cent, but the neighbouring Thompson-Nicola Regional District deferred a decision on an increase to the new board which will be elected in the fall.
Pierce also provided the committee with a breakdown of remuneration with a 7.72 per cent top-up added to offset the lost net income due to new taxation, but said how the CSRD will handle it is ultimately up to the board.
The committee also agreed the remuneration bylaw should be reviewed every four years in order to avoid placing the task of a full bylaw rewrite like they are undertaking on a future CSRD board and staff.
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