City councillors have unanimously voted in favour of the public disclosure of the Chief Administrative Officer’s (CAO) pay and benefits following each annual performance review. 

During the July 29 regular meeting of council, Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp’s Notice of Motion was carried when CAO David Duckworth nodded his commitment to disclose his annual base salary, which in 2025 amounted to $410,000.

He said the amount was the same as the one he took home last year.

However the CAO’s pay bands increase in 2025, with the lower amount increased by a minimum of 50 per cent and a maximum of 36 per cent when compared to the CAO’s 2024 salary. LWC was the first to report on the CAO pay band increase and subsequent Notice of Motion.

Duckworth spoke at the council meeting, which required permission from council, as it is not a routine task for a CAO.

While delivering his verbal statement, Duckworth commended the request of Coun. Sharp, along with the openness of Calgary’s municipal government.

“There’s always room for improved transparency,” he said. 

“I am in full support of this notice of motion.”

Mayor Jyoti Gondek reiterated the motion’s concluding statement and stressed that Duckworth’s salary be published on an easily accessible website, which he agreed to do. 

“I am more than willing to disclose, as soon as a performance review is done, any adjustments to the salary band and to my salary. I am happy to do that,” said Duckworth. 

In addition to publishing the CAO’s annual base salary, the motion asked that taxable benefits, pension contributions, and performance-based adjustments be released every year. 

Coun. Sharp said that that the motion underwent rigorous editing in order to be approved.

Not a simple process, Coun. Sharp said

Following a conversation with CAO David Duckworth, Coun. Sharp removed the motion’s third direction to city admin before presenting it to council. Originally, it asked that the rationale for the CAO’s compensation adjustment be made available in plain language.

Had that change not been made, Coun. Sharp said that the Public Sector Transparency Act would have mandated that a bylaw be passed in place of a motion.

She said that set-in-stone decisions regarding the CAO’s pay band should be for the next council to decide.

“If we believe in transparency at city hall, we need to start with the CAO,” said Sharp.

Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner said that she was initially concerned with how the motion was originally drafted, but that once it was altered, she felt that the document encapsulated one of the major successes of today’s city councillors. 

“I think one of the good things that we have done as a council, collectively, is put and strengthen the performance review process of the CAO,” she said.  

But Mayor Gondek said that Coun. Sharp’s decision to put forward the motion had nothing to do with making the wages of public sector employees visible to constituents, but rather, a tactic for gaining support barely three months away from an election. 

“It could have been posed when all of council was discussing performance and compensation, but now it’s coming to us in the form of a notice of motion so someone can, I don’t know, score campaign points on it,” said Mayor Gondek. 

“Why did she feel it was necessary to bring a notice of motion during an election year?”

Coun. Sharp said that the number of motions presented at Tuesday’s meeting was evidence that politics is the very role of councillors, and that this was the result of them performing their responsibilities.  

“Of course, everyone’s playing politics,” said Sharp. 

“Even the eight that aren’t running are playing politics.”