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There’s no set formula for local governments to determine what their mayors and councils get paid.

But the fact that Victoria city council voted themselves a 25% pay hike earlier this month and Kelowna council followed suit with a 35% bump this week simply increases the incentive for other cities to follow suit.

“It’s causing a race to the top,” Carson Binda, BC director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, told iNFOnews.ca. “I don’t think our municipal politicians should be racing to see who can profit the most off the taxpayer dollar.

"They should have kept it tied to the Consumer Price Index and not given themselves these ridiculous raises that we’re seeing.”

Since 2014, the City of Kelowna has tied council pay increases to the Consumer Price Index.

READ MORE: Kelowna city council gives itself a 35% pay hike

The City of West Kelowna and the Regional District of Central Okanagan have similar formulas and indicated to iNFOnews.ca their approach won’t be reviewed until close to the 2026 election.

The City of Victoria recently commissioned Drive Organizational Development Ltd. to study mayor and council pay rates and other compensation.

Julie Case, compensation consultant for Drive, did that study and compared Victoria to 11 other BC cities ranging in population from 44,100 (West Vancouver) to 148,600 (Coquitlam). Five out of province cities were also looked at.

It found that Coquitlam’s mayor had the highest pay at $187,100.

In January, the Tri-City News reported that the Coquitlam mayor and council got a 12.5% raise and will get another 12.5% next year because that’s what its unionized staff is getting.

Delta’s mayor was number two on the list at $175,300.

The Delta Optimist reported in April 2023 that the mayor got a 13.6% raise that year based on a comparison with four other similar-sized cities in the Lower Mainland.

Victoria’s mayor was eighth on the list at $127,700 while Kelowna’s Mayor Tom Dyas came in 10th at $126,497. Only Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson of Kamloops was paid less at $117,700.

Victoria had a population at the 2021 census of about 91,900 compared to 97,900 residents in Kamloops and 144,600 in Kelowna, about 4,000 less than Coquitlam.

Kelowna set its mayor’s pay rate at the 60th percentile of the study, which means a 15% increase to $145,200. Councillors get a 35% increase because their wages went from 35% of the mayor’s to 40%.

Victoria didn’t bump up its mayor’s pay but moved councillors to 50% of her wage. Their 25% increase will give them $65,525 per year and they are considered full-time councillors, even though some do have other employment.

Kelowna councillors will get $58,080.

“Why should municipal politicians make more from their part time jobs than most Kelowna residents do from their full-time jobs?” Binda asked.

Statistics Canada reported the median income for men in 2021 in the Central Okanagan was $48,000 per year while women got $36,800. The data includes both full-time and part-time work.

“If we want the best individuals in these chairs in the future beyond the time that we’re in here, it’s something that we need to do so, at least, we’re at a par with other communities in this province,” Mayor Dyas said during debate in support of the increases.

That was echoed by some of the councillors who knew of people who did not run for election in 2022 because of the low pay.

READ MORE: New Year, inflation mean big raises for some Kamloops, Okanagan councils

“In the last Kelowna municipal election there were more than 30 candidates running for those seats,” Binda said. “There’s no shortage of people who want to serve their community. I don’t think councillors need to be taking these huge pay raises to attract candidates.

"When those 30 candidates in the last municipal election put their names on the ballot, each and every one of them knew what the wage was. That didn’t stop them.”

Binda said council wages should be tied to the Consumer Price Index but no increases should be given if councils raise taxes. He went on the say that all elected officials should be community servants and not profit from being in office.

Retiring Kelowna city clerk Stephen Fleming took the pay raise proposal to council at this time, he said, because it was clear that tying increases to inflation was causing Kelowna council to fall further and further behind their contemporaries.

The reality of the increases in Victoria and Kelowna is that it raises the median income for the 12 cities in the survey, thus opening the door for others to justify adjusting their own pay based on a new higher median pay rate.

Case, who did the study, told iNFOnews.ca that she only does the research and does not make recommendations and did not have suggestions of a better way to determine compensation rates.

She did point out that determining compensation rates for elected officials is quite different than for employees.

“When it comes to employee compensation there are compensation principals that apply when making recommendations on your city manager’s job or a senior engineer's job or a communications assistant’s job,” Case said.

“There’s a market rate for those jobs that you can go out and say, this is what others pay, this is how your job compares. There is supply and demand when it comes to those types of jobs.

“Those types of compensation principles don’t apply exactly to council compensation. That’s where the challenge comes in because there’s no qualifications to become a councillor or a mayor. You don’t have to have a degree in this or a certificate in this or so many years of experience.”

In addition to the pay hikes, Kelowna’s mayor and councillors also have medical and dental coverage fully paid by the city. That costs taxpayers $46,000 per year, or $5,111 per elected official.

Five Kelowna councillors and the mayor also sit as paid directors on the Regional District of Central Okanagan board.

For most, that’s $21,810 per year plus $100 for each board meeting (there are 20 scheduled for 2024 so $2,000) plus more if they sit on external committees like the library board or airport advisory committee.

The exception is councillor Loyal Wooldridge who sits as chair of the regional board. For that he gets $56,077 per year.

That means with the increase, Dyas will be paid at least $169,000. More if he attends committee meetings, although the pay hike isn’t in place yet so he won’t get the full amount this year.

Four city councillors — Ron Cannan, Charlie Hodge, Gord Lovegrove and Mohini Singh — will get at least $81,890. Wooldridge will get at least $116,157.

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