Council Up for Pay Bump
The next Medicine Hat city council is looking at a nearly 14 per cent pay bump for councillors and more than 16 per cent for mayor along with indexed pay increases tied to inflation.
The city’s Administrative and Legislative Committee voted to move the issue of pay increases to council which will result in part-time councillors paid a little more than $60,000 with the full-time mayoral position receiving a little less than $160,000 if accepted.
The renumeration policy will also see annual pay rises continue to be tied to inflation starting during the second year of the next council’s term as calculated by Alberta’s consumer price index. In 2024, that rate saw a 2.4 per cent increase. Since 2021, councillor raises indexed to inflation has seen wages rise 16 per cent from $45,476 to $52,977. For the mayor, that has seen a pay rise of more than $22,000.
The policy also allows the city to match contributions to a councillor’s or mayor’s retirement savings plan or tax-free savings account up to $7,200 and $19,100 respectively.
The issue of pay was an issue during the last council’s term following changes to federal tax legislation which resulted in the removal of provisions which allowed a third of elected officials wages to be received tax free.
Prior to the fall of 2020, previous council pay increases were handled on an ad hoc basis prior to the adoption of the current policy. That policy also requires the city review renumeration, “in the third year of each Council term and compared against average annual base salary paid to City Council members in the Comparator (Peer) Group and considering the unique governance responsibilities of the City of Medicine Hat.”
This current review is coming at the end of the fourth year of council’s term.
The committee heard there were some, “operations challenges,” preventing the review from being presented earlier.
CLARIFICATION - The exact wording of the city’s renumeration policy regarding timing of when a review is to take place has been added to this article.