$6000 a year for vehicle allowance? Huh? No fleet vehicles to use for the occasional trip cross town? Not sure where she would need to drive as part of her duties.

What do you think of this appointment, Pal
Cheers

I like it. She lives here – probably gives a crap. The vehicle allowance would cover off about 10000 km a year at CRA tax free rates. If she got a fleet vehicle, and took it home, she would be charged a stand-by charge taxable benefit, so she’d still be stuck driving her own car to work, to use the fleet vehicle, and then we’d be complaining about the fleet vehicle that has to sit there for whenever Kathleen wants it, vs paying her to use her vehicle, when she has to do her duties outside the office. As to when would she need to drive, I don’t know, maybe she’ll take the odd tour of the city to see if the city crews are doing what we pay them for.

Good hire.

I think that this is a good move on the part of the City. Promoting people within the organization, who have worked hard over the years is a good thing. Bringing in High Rollers from across the Country and telling us that we need to do this to get the best people, is nothing more than a Human Resources/Management ploy. Furthermore if you bring them in from outside, they will leave when they get fired, laid off, or retire.

Having Soltis take this job allows someone to move up to her position, and at some point should allow the City to operate with one less employee, which is a significant savings.

I think that we can say that this is one of the first changes in how City Hall will operate in the future, and there will be more. Mayor Hall seems to have the best interests of all the Citizens of Prince George in mind as he makes decisions.

I expect nothing but good things from the Council in the coming years. Hopefully I am right, because we have had enough of the back room deals, infighting, and vested interest groups running this City.

I don’t know much about her but I am with you Palopu.

Someone who has lived here, experienced the city, and cares was the best way to go.

An MBA, which requires no small amount of effort, and 29 years of paying her dues; looks like Ms. Soltis has earned her reward.
And she shall be well compensated (wow!) but if what they say is true, you have to pay well for the best minds.
Congratulations Ms. Soltis, I think you will do well for the City.
metalman.

Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2015 @ 10:34 AM by phje

Someone who has lived here, experienced the city, and cares was the best way to go

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I live here! Can I get 6 grand of taxpayer’s money annually so that I can drive to work? Thanks! Oh! and can you have my parking lot cleared for me before I get to work? Don’t worry about the streets, so long as my parking lot is cleared! Thanks!

Who ever said it metalman was overpaid.

I am sure she has a contract just like James.. If she gets a severance package for quitting or being let go who ever came up with it needs to find new work because they aren’t negotiating for the citizens of Prince George.

Yes, I believe this is the right move. She knows where the skeletons and landmines are. She knows the people running each department and she will be able to build a relationship with staff and be able to meet the mandates set by the mayor and council.

This is a positive step, I am sure there will be whiners out there squawking about the wages and benefits. But, its a pretty crappy job to have.

Finally, after how many years, we get to use local people to do local work. Wahooo.

$500 in vehicle allowance is reasonable for a position that should have expectations to frequently venture outside the sanctity of City Hall, often at a moment’s notice. Vehicle allowance indicates she supplies the vehicle and fuel and maintains it at her own expense. The City can’t lease and maintain a vehicle to be at her disposal that cheap.

Give her lots, that way the rest can demand $200,000 per year.

Vehicle allowance means just that..she gets an extra $500 a month.. Which would include, insurance, fuel, maintenance etc. As for the city manager on call to fly into duty at a moments notice, not likely..lol. I am sure she has a make an appt policy..

axman – it’s not for driving to work. No one, not even self employed people are allowed to deduct the cost of driving to and from work. In fact, if they supplied her with a vehicle, the portion of driving to and from work, would be added to her T4 as a taxable benefit. If you know self employed people who say they are writing off the trip to the office and back, they just haven’t been caught by CRA.

What is deductible, is when a taxpayer calls city hall to say that there’s three graders and two pick up trucks parked at the end of the street for the last two hours – and the guys are all standing around, and she jumps into her personal vehicle, and drives out, to see for herself. That’s what the allowance is for, and at 54 cents a km, it wouldn’t take too many trips to burn up $500.00.

Hey, look at the bright side, if we hired another wonder child from the lower mainland, we’d be giving them a $25,000 moving allowance and a link to Google Maps so they can find the city.

I trust Mayor Hall and the council on this one! Congratulations!

Nice to finally see a local person receive a promotion from within. She’s got the credentials and enough history with the Municipality to make decisions on behalf of the community. Congratulations to the Mayor and City Council for making a sound and sensible decision and to Ms. Soltis.

What is deductible, is when a taxpayer calls city hall to say that there’s three graders and two pick up trucks parked at the end of the street for the last two hours – and the guys are all standing around, and she jumps into her personal vehicle, and drives out, to see for herself. That’s what the allowance is for, and at 54 cents a km, it wouldn’t take too many trips to burn up $500.00.

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Huh? That’s not her job. Can you imagine the union’s reaction if the city manager did that?

At 54 cents a km she’d have to rack up 926 km a month. I’d really like to see where the city manager has to go to rack up that kind of mileage every month. They’re giving her 500 dollars a month to drive to work.

But hey, it’s only taxpayer’s money. Plenty more where that came from!

Glad to see that Kathleen was named permanent City Manager! I had feared that perhaps Rob Whitwam was in the running, and that would have been one horrendous Cluster “you know what”
Kathleen was born and raised here, in fact her father was the late Dr. McKenzie, so she definitely has enough of a feel for the city, and enough experience navigating the landmines at city hall to be the best city manager since George Paul!
As for the car allowance I really don’t understand the controversy! It’s just another way of structuring her compensation package. Honestly they could have just given her a salary of $228,000 per year and not given the car allowance and it would make no difference to her as the car allowance is a taxable benefit!
Also as mentioned above, since we don’t have to pay $25K for her to move here, her car allowance is already covered for the first 4 years!

Palopu, you state:

“I expect nothing but good things from the Council in the coming years. Hopefully I am right, because we have had enough of the back room deals, infighting, and vested interest groups running this City.”

Vested interest groups?

You wouldn’t be talking about CUPE now, would you?

I wonder what her thoughts are on the recent sale of items purchased for the winter games and sold to city employees verses holding an auction for the general public.

$6000 a year for the use of her vehicle is ridiculous after making a salary of $222,000 a year. What’s next,I had to use my personal toilet paper this morning to wipe my ass I should be compensated!

Long time resident or not were is the accountability in making costly (stupid) decisions? Nice to know if you screw up you can walk away with a hefty severance package for your efforts or lack of.

PrinceGeorge, I’m with you. I understand she has a very nice personality,
and well liked by city staff, a huge plus in this day and age. I wish her success in her new position. Mayor Hall yuh done right by us!

She probably had some sort of car allowance on her previous job, plus keep in mind she was paid $190,358.00 on her old job, plus she worked the Managers jobs a couple of times in the past and probably didn’t get the rate.

In any event its a done deal.

Congrats to her on her new position..

Doesn’t take long to rack up a thousand k in this city, its soo spread out.

Its good she has the background and experience of the City

Excellent move, she has worked in the wings for years and deserves the opportunity, better to grow from within then hire some prospect from the outside. I am sure she will do a great job.

She’ll be lucky to keep $120,000.00 of that!

cougs79. Where did you get those numbers.. No way she will lose $100,000 to income tax..lol.

Whenever an outsider is hired over qualified staff on hand, it looks suspicious. Ms. Soltis has earned her stripes, and thankfully the mayor and council recognize that. Congratulations Kathleen, and please keep your mind open to suggestions.

I wish her all the best but I would like to say that some of the wages they are paying these people is overkill. At $900 a day for this type of work does not make any sense. It’s not as if she has any expenses like having a piece of equipment to maintain etc. Most everything that she uses to do her job is supplied by the City.

Great choice! Well done, Mayor and council.

I work for a company where quite a few of us have fleet vehicles and we don’t have to pay any taxes on that benefit. We can’t use them for personal reasons, but we do use them to get to and from work.

I agree though that $500/mo is cheaper than providing a fleet vehicle.

As for onemansthoughts, what the heck are you talking about?

Don’t get audited on that to and from work usage littlebirdie – and that’s coming from a 15 year company vehicle driver with a CRA auditor for a best friend. Lots do it but that doesn’t make it allowable. Just a heads up.

Yes littlebirdie… shhhhh… CRA can go back a few years and reassess your taxes. Although the bookkeeper may already be adding a taxable benefit to your T4 if they use a reputable firm for the yearend

I think the pay is still on the rich side, and I have concerns about asset sales as exampled in the Canada Games sale… but I think its a good move for the City of PG hiring local talent that knows this city and will be here for the long haul. A step in the right direction.

The current tax interpretation by CRA for my workplace is office staff that work at the same office everyday pay tax on the vehicle benefit. Field staff that over the year work at different worksites pay no tax on having the vehicle to drive to and from these worksites (so long as no personal side trips on the way to and from work and they don’t go to the office at the start and end of the work day). Of course subject to change!

Good choice. With 29 years already with the City can’t see her wanting to look for better pastures like the previous Managers and Directors.

Good choice, give your heads a shake, really! 17 years as CFO and no one thinks she is part of the City’s financial infrastructure problems. I would also prefer my hard earned taxpaying dollars go to a fair job of recruiting the best candidate, not just handing a job of this calibre to someone who’s put their time in. As for the car allowance, why is it 50% higher than what the City pays all other staff using their own vehicles for work, because she’s put her time in. If your looking for skeletons in the closet I dare say you don’t need to look far. Another great decision by this Mayor and Council at setting the City back a decade.

I had a good laugh listening to the Mayor justifying the $10,000 a year raise she gets over the previous manager. Does he really think we’re stupid enough to believe that Soltis would not have accepted the position for less then $222,000? As a lifer city employee she wasn’t going anywhere.

This is nothing but political cronyism at it’s finest. We need radical change at the city hall, we don’t need more of the same old, same old simply because that’s the way the union wants it.

This is payback for the CUPE votes.

onlymyopinion – infrastructure is not the responsibility of the CFO.

We are getting some radical changes at City Hall.

1.Bates gone.
2.James gone.
3.Bone gone.
4.Davis gone.
5.Gaal gone.
6.Greene gone
7.Wilbur gone
8.Stolz gone.

There were others. Van Mook comes to mind.

So just how much change do you think we need.?????

“So just how much change do you think we need.?????”

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We need to make a massive dent in the 50 million dollars per year that we pay in salaries.

Your list of “gone” is more a list of “replaced” or “soon to be replaced”. The unnecessary and extremely expensive bureaucracy still remains. Nothing has changed but the names.

You all should apply for some of these jobs……sounds like you all know much better and are far more qualified than anyone else!