Shouldn't this be broken down a bit more granular than just dollar figures?

What the hell did Colin Kinsley expense $20,000 on? It's PG taxpayers money, there is a right to know.

Why is a mayor in a small town the size of PG worth almost $89,000 a year, anyway? That's more than a registered nurse brings home in a year (working a hell of a lot of overtime), and I can guarantee you with 100% certainty that a registered nurse in PG does a lot more for the people than any mayor ever has, or will.

O.T. for the mayor: he is on duty from the moment he gets up til he lays his head for the night. He is on duty seven days a week and must attend almost every public function.
And when the brown stuff hits the fan, he must take all the heat.
A nurse has a defined shift and has mandated rest periods that include at least 12 hours between shifts and days in a row off.
Nurse works 12 hour shift, Mayor works 16 hour shift.

I am sure that someone will object to my estimations of nurse work hours, but surely the point is valid and within reason.

As to: "I can guarantee you with 100% certainty that a registered nurse in PG does a lot more for the people than any mayor ever has, or will."
HUH, a nurse assists tens of people in a day, the mayor is responsible to tens of thousands every day.

The expenses are mainly for trips that the individuals went on. The mayor obviously goes on more than anyone else because of his position. It does not matter who the mayor is, the espnses would be about the same. I suspect he travelled more than that with those other tirps being paid by other organizations than the City of PG.

How does one measure the value of one person over another is always a big problem. For some it is more of a problem than others.

Loki hit the nail on the head. There can be countless other things that can be added to the list.

One, for instance, is that there are very few mayors in Canada compared to nurses. When a nurse does not show up for work, she or he can be replaced by someone else for the shift and even for the sick days or week. There will not be a discernable change in productivity or quality of service provided. That can happen with a Mayor as well to a certain extent. But give it much longer than a week and things will start not functioning as they should.

There are those in the private enterprise world that believe the person who has the greatest income should be the person who should be filling out time sheets so that they become aware of what they should be spending their time on with respect to effective and efficient use of time. In that way, they can delegate that less effective time to someone else at a lower pay scale.

What is typically the highest type of effective work those at the top salaries can do? Networking. Talking to people who can be influential in causing something to happen that you want to happen. Putting the right people together. Those are highly specialized skills tht not everyone has an affinity to do and typically is not something learned in school or university. It is part of the school of hard knocks.

So, while a mayor can be effective at getting a Universty built here, a hospital expansion, a cancer clinic, a nurse can be effective at working in the hospital and cancer clinic and, with some advanced degrees, teaching at the University.

Who is more important? They all are and they all choose to be what they work at and hopefully they all enjoy what they are doing.

"But give it much longer than a week and things will start not functioning as they should."

Does anyone really think that Kinsley or Rogers is the glue that holds it all together? Generally politicians are not effective at any level, but considering the extremely limited powers of local government I just dont think that its a particularily important job.

That being said $90k is probably reasonable, but it does likely put him at the high end when compared to his constituents.

89K is squat for a position of that magnitude, especially if you were to convert it to an hourly wage based on the amount of time that the mayor is required to work in a year.

I also tend to disagree with Born in BC in that I think that out of local politicians, our MLA's and MP's, the local folks would actually have the highest level of influence on our day to day lives. City staff certainly plays a significant role in how the operations are managed, but it is council who has the ultimate authority to govern the way our city, the area we spend the most time in, is run.

Loki,

Being mayor is a salary position, not hourly. There is no overtime, and to suggest a mayor ought to get overtime is ludicrous.

The US president earns about $400,000 USD per year (google it, I'm right!). The mayor of PG is earning almost 1/4 that. Doesn't that strike anyone as wrong?

Our Prime Minister earns about $300,000 per year (google it, I'm right!), the PG mayor is earning almost 1/3 of that. Again, doesn't this strike anyone as wrong?

I don't know how you can justify the mayor of a small town like Prince George earning more than a registered nurse just for winning a popularity contest.

I'm sure the guy is expected to be there a lot, but when he's not there's a deputy mayor to do his job.

There are a lot of other jobs out there which require being on call 24/7 which don't pay nearly as well as what the mayor is pulling in, and nobody really has any idea what the mayor even does most of the time. How do you expense $20,000 and not break down one red cent of it? It's your money!

I think it's kind of sick to act like the mayor of Prince George is the sole person responsible for a hospital, university, etc... being built in Prince George. You can bet your last drop of beer the ideas didn't originate with the mayor, and probably no work at all was done toward it by the mayor.

What bothers me is that the same people who think it's okay for a useless tit like a small town mayor to cost the city over $100,000 a year for doing relatively little get their back up over the idea that minimum wage ought to be raised occasionally to keep pace with inflation, and that welfare rates ought to be adjusted so our most vulnerable don't fall through the cracks.

If you really ran the numbers, you'd find politicians cost taxpayers a hell of a lot more than our social programs do to protect our most vulnerable.