As it stands, Calgary city councillors started receiving a mandated 2.41 per cent pay increase on their paycheques for 2024.

That’s due to a formula tied to Alberta Average Weekly Earning (AWE) first approved in 2006 and reaffirmed through a council compensation review committee again in 2020.  Councillors froze their pay in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

Councillors received a 1.6 per cent increase in 2022, and 2.41 in 2023. (MORE DETAILS IN A DOCUMENT AT THE BOTTOM.)

A verbal update was provided during the Jan. 16 public hearing meeting of council after it was included in the agenda as a non-planning item going to council. According to Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek, councillors had approached her in December with questions on it, so it was submitted for this meeting.

“The reason that this is on the agenda is because some members of council came to me after the December 21 email from administration indicating that there was a 2.41 per cent increase people asked how is this just done automatically? Who decides this? Can we change it?” Mayor Gondek said.

“I wanted to ensure that all of you, especially those that have not been through this process before, had the opportunity to understand how this decision was made.”

Despite the information, some councillors still took issue with the automatic pay raise.

“I don’t blame Calgarians for reaching out to us and taking it personally right now that we see a little bit more money on our paycheques and they don’t,” said Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp.

Sharp added that she, like some other councillors, would be donating the incremental pay raise to a local organization.

Nothing put forward for a pay freeze

Coun. Sharp had suggested she would donate if nothing was coming forward to freeze or decrease councillor pay. So did councillor Chabot, as he calculated both the property tax impact (less than four cents per month, he said) and how many votes it would take to reconsider the pay increase motion.

Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean said he was going to vote no to accepting the verbal report on councillor pay for the corporate record. He said it’s the least he could do since the pay raise had already started.

“I’m not going to bring forward a motion. It would be pointless to debate this,” McLean said.  

“It sounds like it’s already baked in the cake. We’ve already done it.”

While the pay increase had already been applied to start 2024, with the process starting in December, Calgary’s Chief Administrative Officer, David Duckworth said they would follow the will of council on this.

“If council makes a different decision – I’m looking to my colleagues – but we would implement what council wishes,” he said.

Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott said the conversation was less about a motion coming forward, but the efficiency of the public service. He said there’s always a balance of paid and free labour for what service falls within the parameters of the job.  He likened it to being paid to be a teacher, but having the unspoken rules about handling other aspects of the job that went beyond teaching.

“Long story short, that these systems don’t seem to work without a balance of paid labour, and unpaid labour, just to make it run as it runs today,” he said.  

“So, I always wonder how we’ll ever appropriately attract people from various backgrounds in life. From the social sector, from nonprofit, from business, from the arts. A city councillor in a city of 1.4 million falls under such great scrutiny when an independent body, separate from council, built from citizens or peers, determined that our pay should be reflective of an average, for better for worse.”

Ward 7 Coun. Terry Wong said that there will be another review coming soon. The Council Compensation Review Committee had 105 applicants, according to city administration. Ultimately, he said that the time they put in should be weighed against MPs, MLAs and others.

“As I said before, given the you know, the numerous hours we put in evenings, weekends, and everything else – we give good value, and it’s up to us to demonstrate good value, so people don’t ask us the question, why are we being compensated what it is. We shouldn’t have to rationalize what we get paid,” he said.

Coun. Wong also said he would be donating his portion of the incremental raise.

No motions to freeze pay, or decrease pay, came forward for this meeting of council.