Overall Hike Kept Below Two Per Cent. Regional Councillors Settle For Zero Salary Increase
By Doug Draper
It was a long night but Niagara, Ontario’s regional council final got it approved – a budget for 2013 that will mean a 1.97 increase on the regional government’s portion of the property tax bill, adding up to an additional $25 next year for the average homeowner.
Niagara, Ontario’s Regional Headquarters
The passage this December 6 of the 2013 budget follows several weeks of debate over how much should be spent operating a host of regional services from waste management, roads, water and wastewater to policing, health, affordable housing and a fledgling regional transit system., and on the capital costs of building and maintaining roads and other infrastructure. In the end, the council, made up of directly elected representatives and the mayors of Niagara’s 12 municipalities, settled on an operating budget of $303 million for the coming year and a capital budget of $218 million.
“Regional Council and staff have worked hard to table a 2013 budget that balances prosperity and job creation with sustainable funding considerations for programs and services,” said Niagara Regional Chair Gary Burroughs in a statement released following the budget’s approval. “We managed to protect the programs and services that resident have come to rely upon while ensuring we can afford to pay for them by keeping next year’s tax increase to less than two per cent.”
The news on water and wastewater rates, which is billed to property owners separately, isn’t quite as rosy. The rates on the regional government’s side of a water bill that is shared with local municipalities will increase by 2.47 per cent in 2013.
Following a final debate that lasted more than an hour this December 6 on councillors’ salaries alone, the council also agreed, almost anonymously, to a zero increase in pay and any other stipends paid to regional councillors and the regional chair in 2013.
The lone councillor voting against a final motion to keep a cap on councillors’ remuneration in the New Year was St. Catharines regional councillor Al Caslin, who said he would prefer to see councillors’ salaries rolled back.
Speaking in favour of a zero increase, Welland regional councillor Peter Kormos told others around the chambers; “This is a pretty affluent group of people. Surely people aren’t here for the money because if we are, we are here for the wrong reason.”
Niagara Falls regional councillor, who eventually supported the motion for a zero increase, earlier made a pitch for a two-per cent increase, saying that councillors work hard at their elected duties and take time away from their regular jobs to serve the public. He called all the time councillors were spending wringing their hands over an increase that amounted to $30,000 across the board a case in engaging in “the silly season.”
Dave Eke, Niagara-on-the-Lake’s lord mayor, put his own spin on the extraordinary time councillors were taking to decide on a raise for themselves. “We are about to pass a budget, just like that, at $900 million and here we are spending more than an hour over $30,000. We deserve a zero increase over the amount of time we have taken on this.”
The regional chair’s annual salary for what is a full-time position will remain at $113,913 while salaries for regional councillors, a part-time position, will be held to $27,527. Stipends for councillors co-chairing committees of council will remain at $2,000 for the coming year.
You can learn more about Niagara Region’s 2013 budget and related matters around the services regional government delivers by visiting
http://www.niagararegion.ca/ .
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