Calgary’s Ward 14 councillor said he doesn’t care if the mayor takes credit for new rules around City of Calgary employee compensation disclosure, just that it gets done.
Earlier this week, Calgary’s Executive Committee approved the technical merits of a Notice of Motion from Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas that would see city administration conduct a review of the top 10 Calgary companies based on market capitalization and how they handle disclosure of their executive compensation.
That would be used to create an executive compensation framework that is aligned with the top publicly traded companies in Calgary.
“If you look at the top 10 companies here in Calgary, you flip through their annual reports, you’ll see very clearly what the bonus is, what the take-home pay, the benefits of their senior leadership, including the presidents, VPs, and so on,” Farkas said.
“So, this motion calls to upgrade our disclosure practices to follow suit. The City of Calgary is certainly one of Calgary’s top companies, and it’s time that we take some of the cue from the private sector in terms of the detail that was disclosed.”
The motion would also examine the potential federal or provincial privacy legislation that applies to a disclosure of this sort, along with a review of collective bargaining agreements, and risk mitigation around expanded disclosure.
In early February, Farkas and Ward 14 Coun. Landon Johnston butted heads on a proposed Notice of Motion that would have seen the disclosure of all names, positions and exact compensation for any employee making more than $140,000.
“This measure would eliminate the current vague pay band ranges, providing clear and precise information to taxpayers,” Johnston said at the time.
That motion was ultimately sent back to the councillor and city administration for further work.
‘Named and shamed’ on some kind of list: Mayor Farkas
Farkas said this week that he knows other councillors want steps taken on employee disclosure.
“Some would like to see every single city staff member have, ultimately, their pay disclosed and then named and shamed in some kind of list on some website somewhere,” Farkas told reporters.
“For me, I think it’s incumbent on the senior leadership of the city, myself, other city councillors, obviously, our compensation is disclosed. I think it makes a lot of sense for senior executive leadership team as well as the city manager to have that compensation disclosed.”
Last year, LWC was the first to report on the increase in CAO overall salary and the salary bands associated with the position. That discussion led to further calls for transparency around the pay of City of Calgary senior leaders.
For his part, Coun. Johnston said that his earlier motion was simply an attempt to curry city administration help to develop a framework for transparency. He posted to social media in late February around the prospect of Mayor Farkas putting a similar motion forward.
Johnston had apparently received a letter from one of Calgary’s unions, chiding him for pushing for a so-called sunshine list.
“When you become a public employee, you give up certain rights. I mean, as a public employee, your name is public. For a big reason, if you need to make a complaint against a public employee, you have the right to know that name, right? We have salary bands. All I want to do is connect the name to the band, like every other province and jurisdiction already does.”
Johnston said the problem with the mayor’s motion is that he just wants to top echelon of the city’s executive. He also said that the mayor has more access to administration.
“His is asking the same thing as ours asked, which was to get the administration to come back with a framework to make it possible,” Johnston said.
“So, it would have been nice to work together, but if he wants the credit, he can take it. I don’t really care.”
It’s unclear when Johnston’s motion will come back to Executive Committee for approval. The motion from Mayor Farkas will come to the next full meeting of Calgary city council.
