The Mayor is paid about $36,000 a year excluding expenses (in 2008 about $20,000) while council members are paid about $11,000 if they attend all or most meetings (see pg 41 of the June 8 agenda package cited above).
No one will get rich being a Mayor of a small town or city. It is not paid as a full-time job, but holding down another job at the same time may be difficult or impossible. Travel expenses probably help, but how useful that travel really is to the City is not that clear.
I’ve noticed with this council that the administration quite often makes public statements on behalf of the City, more than I recall in the past or have noticed in other small cities. I would question whether public servants are really the most appropriate or effective speakers on behalf of the City. Some statements I’ve read in the paper come across as being a bit trite.
It might be better to pay a Mayor more so that they spend more time here and do more of the talking on behalf of the civic leadership. An elected politician may be more likely than a staff person to listen as well as talk, I think.
[quote=“Creaking Door”]
Unfortunately I cannot figure out how to cut and paste from a pdf, but anyone who wishes to investigate the claim that civic employees are underpaid and deserve something extra under the tree might go to the following link, scroll down to pg 43 of the June 8/09 council meeting agenda package, and form their own opinion.[/quote]
Normally, one can copy and paste from a PDF, as long is it is generated by a computer program and is text. Unfortunately, the document linked looks like it was just a scanned copy of a package of information. So the PDF file stores the pages as images, not text.
I’m not sure if that’s on purpose or not, but having the information in this format makes it difficult to do things like copy and paste. It also makes it impossible for search engines to index it. You also can’t search the website for keywords listed in the images of the PDF. So it gives the appearance of being open and transparent, but doesn’t go all the way to make the open information useful.
The ideal would be to just convert all this stuff to HTML and let the search engines crawl it. Or at the very least, create text-based PDFs. It’s rather easy to do, and I know the City employs at least one pretty smart computer guy. But maybe this isn’t his department.
Meanwhile, here’s a proper PDF (made of text, not graphics) from which you can copy and paste, and Google can index.
Thanks very much for the explanation and for providing public financial information in a format that can be copied and pasted, and googled. I always appreciate it when posters share their technical knowledge … I’ve been learning a lot.
The Financial Information Act requires that municipal governments prepare a ‘Statement of Financial Information’ in a required format and make it available to the public every year.
The City complied by presenting it at a council meeting, but it is not particularly easy to find. The June 8 council meeting was not originally on the annual meeting schedule and the Statement is buried in the agenda package rather than being posted on the dedicated financial page like the audited statements, for some reason. I don’t know why …
41
City of Prince Rupert
Statement of Financial Information
For Year Ended December 31,2008
Schedule of Council Remuneration and Expenses
Salary Expense
Mayors
Pond, Herb 33,450 19,485
Mussallem, Jack 2,787 826
36,237 20,311
Council Members
Gordon-Payne, Sheila 11,245 6,266
Cote, Ken 10,380 2,204
Ashley, Anna 865 792
Briglio, Tony 10,380 3,800
Garon, Gina 865 693
Thorkleson, Joy 11,245 2,689
Bedard, Kathy 11,245 5,991
Kinney, Nelson 11,245 5,179
67,470 27,614
Aggregate 103,707 47,925
(Prepared as required by Financial Information Regulation, Schedule 1 section 6(2),(3),(4),(5) &(6))
[quote=“AnnaA”]
Many posters have asked for a response from members of city council with regarding why, according to a study done by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Prince Rupert has a much higher number of employees per capita than other municipalities.
While much of the information presented in the study is interesting and certainly makes one think, I have some problems with the study itself.
When it comes to statistics I am always skeptical, especially when details are not given as to how these figures were obtained and calculated. There are many people who warn us about how much value we should place on statistics. Consider this quote, for example:
“Do not put your faith in what statistics say until you have carefully considered what they do not say.â€[/quote]
Thank you for that Speakuppr, that seemed like a lot of work and study, well done and for Anna A I thank you for coming to HTMF in trying to defend what that council and management are trying to do and nothing seems to be going or no one seems to be doing what they promised during their campaigning. This has confused many people whom trusted their vote would be put to good use and their candidates were going to be real and not silenced as it appears.
I note in Speakuppr’s helpful analysis that capital expenditures are only 20% of the median while operating costs are higher than the median in every category. My suggestions:
Sell Citywest.
Sell the Alaska ferry dock.
Sell whatever else is “surplus” (but not fire equipment).
Use the proceeds to catch up on capital expenditures, thereby reducing
operating costs related to infrastructure.
Pay Jack to travel less and spend more time here making sure that departments are
run more efficiently.
When the first PCs came out (early 80s) Mayor Lester started keeping a data base for calls and complaints he received. When a resident called he could double check how their last concern was handled by the city.
He taught himself how to use a computer (DOS back then) and I think it was his own computer too. So he didn’t need to rely on the staff to keep track.
I dont think city services were better back then just because there was more money. Also, he was here most of the time. Maybe there are some lessons there for council today.
I do not believe that anyone one council or in city hall should even be named in any connection as Mayor Peter Lester, he was just too smooth for what we are stuck with now. Sometimes I think Jacko believes he is like Mr. Lester, but Jacko only knows what Peter taught him, not what Peter knew.
PR’s municipal extravagance does seem pretty grotesque, especially with the proposed cuts to library services and roads…I would have hoped that municipal services would come before fat paycheques…I guess the rationale is that the municipal workers can all afford real nice trucks to deal with the offroad like conditions that will certainly prevail on our streets. As for us proles, after our beat up old rust buckets expire, no doubt lining the streets like post-apocalyptic war-zone scenery , we can harness up teams of deer to pull makeshift buggies, as we head to work to put in the hours necessary to keep our lords comfortable in their pimped-out Escalades and Hummers. I think that 4 deer would be needed to equal one horse or so…More research on this is needed.
Anyway, I went a little off topic there…Hopefully that dark vision of the future does not come to pass. The point I really wanted to make was that I have heard on quite solid authority, that the Rec Centre Manager is not actually a new position.
Also, it may be that Mr. Curnes’ municipal salary is higher than the Mayor’s, but I believe that Mayor and Council are part-time positions, and that the incumbents also hold other positions or run local businesses. The job description for Rec Centre Manager says 50 hours a week, so I would imagine Mr. Curnes’ position would have similar demands.
Perhaps it’s not a new position, but according to the Daily Snooze (Dec 14), as well as laying off 5 permanent and 2 seasonal workers in January, the City will not be filling 2 vacancies in the fire department and 3 in public works. Cuts may be overdue, but there are priorities; a recreation manager job is filled while fire dept and public works jobs are being left vacant or made redundant.
It’s interesting to note in Speakuppr’s stats that Rupert is somewhat over the municipal median for protection services and public works related costs, but almost double the median for recreation costs. Recent staffing decisions seem to fit in with past spending patterns. Hopefully the council is involved in setting these priorities and isn’t just going with the flow.
i think its only fair and you have to understand that a big
part of the city work force will be retiring in the next three
to five years,if we keep letting the young ones go who will
be there trained to take over.The problem with folks in Rupert
they want all the services and feel they should get it cheap and
not pay the proper cost for the services if we shut the pool people
scream no ice they seam we shut the civic down one day the world
is coming to a end i have watched it for 33 years folks everything
cost if you want to play you have to pay if you want to cut then
less service you cant have your cake and eat it to.
I wasn’t aware of the layoffs and cuts to public works and the FD. I can’t imagine that recreation would be a higher priority than fixing roads and fighting fires…though we do have a recreation complex that, in other parts of small-town Canada, would be more appropriate to a city twice or more the size of Rupert. Now I’m not complaining about the quality of the Rec centre, Lester centre etc, but those must be big mouths to feed, operating costs wise, for a city this small with a declining population.
for your information the rec center the pool are paid for
the only cost is to maintain it,and its the main attraction
for family’s who are looking to move here.
Well no offence intended to that fine bit of architecture, but I suspect that the main motivation for any family to move here would be a job, (and they’re few and far between to support a family). The Civic Centre/Pool are but helpful pieces of the puzzle.
Operating costs are costs associated with ongoing operation and maintenance of something, so it includes things like utilities, repairs, supplies, and paying people to work there…I certainly wasn’t trying to imply that the facilities were’nt paid for yet! Public facilities are very expensive just to maintain and operate. I’m also not suggesting we should close the city’s rec facilities. The more the population declines, the less tax base there is to draw from.
And yes, the Director’s salary is probably bigger than the Mayor’s, but Mayor is a part time position, and Rec Director is definitely a full time one.
I’m sure there are other places that could be trimmed so we don’t lose either recreation or essential physical/protective services, but good luck finding someone to look at things objectively. People don’t give themselves pay cuts.
Also, I certainly didnt move all the way out here because of the nice rec facilities. It was a career related move, that has since not worked out, and now I have a house to support. I appreciate having the rec centre in town in a philosophical sort of way, but I can’t usually afford the time and small amount of money to make use of its services, my time is consumed with earning a meager living at 2 jobs and sleeping, and trying to avoid contact with all the people in town who make ridiculous money doing FA at the grain or container terminal or flying a desk for the City, because people like that always ask me why I seem so sad and hate the town…like they can’t relate…anyway, thats my bitter, hate-filled existence in a nutshell. I’d love to be happy, but its not in my price range with current economic conditions the way they are…