LAC LA BICHE - The question of council pay has come up at recent election forums, defended by some as an allowable income within approved policies, and argued by others as an over-payment for a municipality of less than 10,000 people.
Lac La Biche County Mayor Omer Moghrabi earned $120,693 in base pay, mileage and event billing in 2020. Lac La Biche County councillors earned an average of $72,366. The rates don't include employee benefits that add approximately $8,500 to each member of the council. The figures come from a report presented to councillors at their last public meeting before the upcoming elections.
The councillors' average pay tally for the 2020 year was formulated using a low of approximately $58,000 in salary, per diem and mileage for councillor Jason Stedman, and a high of just over $80,000 for councillor Lorin Tkachuk.
The report, reviewing the municipality's council and employee pay rates, used figures from the municipality's 2020 financial statements. Based on the figures, and comparing them to other municipalities said to be indexed as similar in geography and demographics, the report's author, Ed Grose with consulting firm HR Outlook, said council's pay is on par with other communities.
The report also found that municipal employees were paid, on average, similar compensation to similar communities.
During his presentation Grose even said that if municipal officials wanted to move into "competitive" salary ranges, rather than "basic" or "comparable" levels, they could increase all levels of pay. Grose said the review is a good way for a municipality to see if it is competitive in the marketplace for hiring new staff and retaining current staffing levels.
Told they make too much
During one of last week's candidate forum events, Lac La Biche County Ward 7 hopeful John Nowak, a former municipal politician who served until 2017, called the current pay-scale "obscene." When Nowak left council, the municipality's year-end financial statements show he was paid an annual salary of $31,547 and earned an additional event honorarium of $27,250. With the addition of benefits, his 2016 salary from council was listed at $66,461, down from $79,470 the year before. During his final term on council, Nowak was also a member of the municipality's policy review committee. That same year, Moghrabi was also the elected mayor, earning $93,353 according to the 2016 Lac La Biche County consolidated financial statements.
Over the years, current Lac La Biche County councillors have heard the comments about council and staff pay. Listening to the recent results of the salary report, Tkachuk says the findings — that the municipality is offering comparable wages and pay rates — was not surprising. He said there have been comments made that municipal officials in Lac La Biche County are higher paid, and yet the report shows otherwise. Tkachuk said remaining at a "comparable" level is preferred to moving towards "competitive."
Mayor Moghrabi went so far as to say that he and council aren't making a lot of money compared to the workload.
"It's a tough job, but we are up to the task," he said of his full-time role.
Snapshot of a busy council: March 2020
The workload of council members is published in expense reports found in the online municipal financial archives. Council members can claim $143 for events up to four hours, $286 for events lasting four to eight hours and $429 for more than eight hours. Mileage is based on a rate of 52 cents per kilometre.
During the month of March in 2020, just as the COVID pandemic was taking hold in the province, councillor Tkachuk claimed 80.5 hours on council business, traveled 618 kilometres, and attended 34 different events. His expense claims that month totalled $5,291, plus $381 in mileage. His report for the month also includes several "no charge" events he attended. The same month's claim sheet shows councillors Beniuk, L'Heureux, Borgun and Cote attending a cattle and beef breeders conference in Red Deer, each claiming their own individual mileage, travel time and meeting rates for the three-day event. For Cote, the event was one of 23 council tasks and 72 hours of council business for that month. He claimed $3,432 for the month, and $465 in mileage. His report also shows several no-charge events attended. Beniuk's monthly expense reports do not include the hours spent at each event. Her March 2020 report shows 12 other events along with the beef conference, including three regular council meetings, two special council meetings and four telephone conference calls. Her total claim for the month was $569 for travel, and $2,860 for meetings. Beniuk's claim also includes two taxi cab receipts totalling $14 paid during the Red Deer beef conference. The following month's expense report for Beniuk tallied only $1,144 plust $73 in mileage claims for four attended events. Councillor Borgun also had a busy March of 2020, logging 18 events, including a five-hour municipal golf tournament planning meeting on March 10 and back-to-back Ag Service Board and Municipal Planning Commission meetings on March 11 that combined took more than four hours. Borgun claimed $3,575 in meeting charges and $763 in mileage for the busy month. L'Heureux had more than 20 events in March of 2020. His month report shows 58 hours claimed for council business with eight additional events — including the Pow Wow Days Association AGM, Plamondon's Cabane 'a Sucre festival and a Kinsmen Pond Hockey meeting — billed as no charge. L'Heureux billed $2,717 for the month, plus $561.60 in mileage.
For remaining councillors Sterling Johnson, Charlyn Moore, Jason Stedman and Mayor Moghrabi, the same March saw several busy expense reports.
Councillor Moore had 23 individual line events listed for the month. While none of Moore's events include the duration, she claimed $3,861 for the month and $204 in travel. Stedman had 15 events on his March 2020 calendar, with 30.5 claimed hours. His month-end pay was $2,574, plus $130 in mileage. Councillor Johnson, who like Stedman has some of the lower claim amounts over the last four years in office, claimed for just 10 events in the same month, billing $1,716 in per diem rates, and $344 in mileage. Mayor Moghrabi's expenses for March 2020 were listed on a three-page document with 53 items and a total claim of $5,720, plus $576 in mileage.
The meeting and mileage claims are in addition to the base pay for Lac La Biche County councillors and the mayor. Councillors earn a base pay of approximately $33,000 plus their event claims. Mayor Moghrabi earns $55,374 as a base rate before additional meeting claims. This council increased their base pay and meeting rates in 2018 after federal tax changes removed the provision allowing for a portion of their pay to be tax exempt. The increase amounted to about a 12 per cent hike.
In the latest pay-scale report, Grose said Mayor Moghrabi's overall 2020 pay, — based on an equal combination of a fixed annual salary of $55,374, and meeting and event rates totalling $54,769 — was comparable to the salary-based pay of full-time mayors in other communities. The report uses several sources, including the Alberta Municipal Affairs Municipality Index to compare municipalities. The report shows the mayors or reeves in the municipalities of Wood Buffalo, Rocky View and Strathcona earn one-time salaries of $165,790, $114,748 and $159,847 respectively. The same report shows the part-time mayor's position in Athabasca earned a salary of $61,261 in 2020, and the part-time mayor's position in Cold Lake earned a similar annual salary of $60,481.
Council members in Wood Buffalo, states the report, earn flat-rate salary of $46,200. Councillors in Strathcona County earn a salary of $86,000, and Cold Lake councillors earn a salary of $27,979.
The equal combination of salary and activity pay that Lac La Biche County council members earn is not common within provincial municipalities, said Grose, explaining that the majority of communities that offer combined pay formulas include meetings and events attended by council within the base salary pay.
In recent years, most of the nine elected council members in Lac La Biche County have claimed equal amounts between their base pay and event billing. A review of the last three years shows that almost all of council saw increased earnings in 2019 from the previous year, but lower pay-rates in 2020.
Pay rates for Council 2018-2020
(including base bay, event billing, mileage, subsistence, registration fees, clothing allowance, communication expenses and benefits)
Salary and base pay figures NOW included.
Darlene Beniuk Ward 1
2018 — $89,155 //
(Salary & Benefits Only - $70,182)
2019 — $91,434
(Salary & Benefits Only - $71,743)
2020 — $72,509
(Salary & Benefits Only - $64,298)
2021 (to July 31) $50,629
George L'Heureux Ward 2
2018 — $94,101
(Salary & Benefits Only - $72,493)
2019 — $96,928
(Salary & Benefits Only - $76,154)
2020 — $75,751
(Salary & Benefits Only - $69,043)
2021 (to July 31) $49,344
Colette Borgun Ward 3
2018 — $112,537
(Salary & Benefits Only - $84,253)
2019 — $96,396
(Salary & Benefits Only - $75,778)
2020 — $87,170
(Salary & Benefits Only - $74,693)
2021 (to July 31) $50,089
Jason Stedman Ward 4
2018 — $77,549
(Salary & Benefits Only - $63,629)
2019 — $77,640
(Salary & Benefits Only - $63,238)
2020 — $70,753
(Salary & Benefits Only - $64,372)
2021 (to July 31) $45,028
Charlyn Moore Ward 5
2018 — $88,567
(Salary & Benefits Only - $70,624)
2019 — $97,171
(Salary & Benefits Only - $75,683)
2020 — $83,973
(Salary & Benefits Only - $75,709)
2021 (to July 31) $45,372
Sterling Johnson Ward 6
2018 — $68,536
(Salary & Benefits Only - $57,365)
2019 — $90,290
(Salary & Benefits Only - $67,856)
2020 — $71,132
(Salary & Benefits Only - $63,702)
2021 (to July 31) $42,272
Lorin Tkachuk Ward 7
2018 — $103,211
(Salary & Benefits Only - $81,396)
2019 — $118,618
(Salary & Benefits Only - $95,360)
2020 — $98,128
(Salary & Benefits Only - $89,241)
2021 (to July 31) $61,090
Colin Cote Ward 7
2018 — $93,321
(Salary & Benefits Only - $74,101)
2019 — $97,364
(Salary & Benefits Only - $75,444)
2020 — $84,478
(Salary & Benefits Only - $77,872)
2021 (to July 31) $52,964
Omer Moghrabi Mayor
2018 — $129,521
(Salary & Benefits Only - $106,008)
2019 — $140,826
(Salary & Benefits Only - $118,263)
2020 — $129,733
(Salary & Benefits Only - $120,693)
2021 (to July 31) $72,105
Lac La Biche County's chief administrative officer Ken Van Buul said the comparative report was a good reflection of numbers and statistics. The CAO, the only employee of county council, said the report provides the math and the equations, but leaves the philosophical questions to the council members.
'It's not all just about the numbers," he said, explaining that "councillors get paid based on what is put on paper." The "science", as he calls the collection of information in the recent report, is just one part ... "now you have to talk about the philosophical."
He said the payscales identified in the report and in the monthly council expense claims fall within current policies and payscale frameworks. He said council expense claims are observed by administrators to make sure the claims match the current policy.
Van Buul, who has been in municipal administration for more than 30 years, also acknowledges that council and staff pay — when it comes to public perception — "is probably one of the most difficult things we deal with." He said most residents may only see councillors at regular council meetings or at events they attend. There is much more behind the scenes and community promotion that goes un-noticed, he said.
"What people see at the meetings is maybe five percent of what they do," he said.
The recent salary report was accepted by councillors as information. No action was taken on the report. Van Buul says it will be up to the newly elected council, following the October 18 election, to act on any part of the document.
Based on data
The most recent data compiled by Albeta Municipal Affairs — the same location used for some of the report's information — shows that the median household income in Lac La Biche County was $90,000 in 2019. According the Statistics Canada 2016 community profile for Lac La Biche County, of the 6,575 residents over the age of 15 able to file an income statement, more than 4,300 made less than $70,000. Of those, more than 3,000 made less than $40,000 in a year. The 2016 census shows the median income of a Lac La Biche resident at just over $39,000. The same report shows that of the the 910 residents earning more than $100,000 at the time of the census, 350 made more than $150,000.
Leading to last week's report, the last comparative review of council and municipal staff pay was in 2016.
