PORT HARDY, B.C.- A committee is being put together to study the pay of Port Hardy’s mayor and council, ahead of the 2018 municipal elections.
“Council pay is something that council has done (looked at) every year, just prior to their oncoming election,” said Mayor Hank Bood.
He said studying pay is a way to prevent councilors and mayors from boosting their pay during their term, and is done in municipalities across the country.
“There is a lot of information on pay around the province on the Union of British Columbia Municipalities website, so we provide that committee with all those stats,” he said.
“Then we have three prominent members of the community look at all those stats and make a recommendation to council as far as mayor and council pay goes.”
He noted that a council can either accept or reject the recommendation, but in his past experience, it’s usually been accepted.
“We are just putting the committee together now,” he said.
“They have a requirement to make the recommendations, I think, somewhere in the summertime and then shortly after that, council makes a decision.”
The committee is looking at the pay for next year’s council.
Bood said the three councils he has been involved with in the past “are certainly not over-paid for their work.”
“I don’t think in general that communities understand that council, and mayor, is basically a part time volunteer job,” he said.
