City Salaries In Line With Peer Communities

Tuesday, November 23, 2010 04:00 AM

Prince George, B.C.- The recent publishing of salaries of Prince George City Hall staff has raised a lot of questions about the amounts being paid numerous City employees.

Prince George is required by law to report all remuneration of elected officials and of those employees whose salary is over $75 thousand dollars.

2009 was an unusual year for cities throughout B.C. as members of their respective fire departments settled a new contract which required each City to pay nearly two years in retroactive pay. That boosted many into a salary range which would be unusual for the year. The reporting of the same financial information for 2010 will have a more accurate picture of the real amounts being paid to members of the fire department.

What is interesting to note is that when several positions with Prince George City Hall are compared to like positions at peer communities, Prince George salaries do not seem out of the norm.

When looking at these comparisons, you have to keep in mind there is no accounting for an individual’s years of service in that post which may have a bearing on their salary. Still, the numbers are interesting to see, especially when you look at the elected officials. We have the highest paid Mayor among the four communities, but our Councillors are near the bottom of that grouping.

Position	Pr. George	Kamloops	Kelowna	Nanaimo
City Manager	$194,262.96	$196,016.00	$254,903.92	$203,012.52
City Clerk	$122,234.43	$89,470.39	$99,525.23	$139,845.79
Fire Chief	$140,707.96	$125,759.77	$139,933.24	$135,121.42
Media Relations	*$95,000.00	$88,800.95	$111,559.77	Two reps, neither making $75 grand or more
Finance	$157,114.62	$145,590.99	$188,556.92	$137,097.71
Development services	$128,810.99	$146,848.48	$124,606.75	$185,945.46
Community Services	$117,619.88	$148,744.20	$130,347.24	$185,976.36
Human Resources	$107,112.97	$133,572.44	$137,374.55	$102,432.95
Operations	$125,325.50	$151,346.36	$133,562.47	$139,568.12

*Although the City of Prince George has a manager of media relations, he didn’t start his job until November of 2009 so the amount paid in salary for that year had not hit the $75 thousand dollar mark which is the threshold for reporting. However, Mayor Rogers has been quoted as saying the job pays $95,000.00 plus expenses.

Title	Prince George	Kamloops	Kelowna	Nanaimo
Mayor	Salary $94,228.84 Expense $17,800.70	Salary $83,822.15 Expense $692.85	Salary $58,281.00 Expense $29,141.00	Salary $81,497.41 Expense $5,674.24
Councillor	$23,638.13	$24,372.56	$20,025.00	$27,061.84

Previous Story - Next Story

Email |

Print |

Facebook |

Twitter |

Digg |

Del.icio.us

Posted on Tuesday, November 23, 2010 04:00 AM in News by 250 News

Return to Home

Comments

Posted by: gus on November 23 2010 4:28 AM

Let me put another spin on this.

The City Manager's compensation is reported as $195,000.

The City Mayor's compensation is reported as just over $94,000

1. Based on the number of hours each puts into doing their job, what is the hourly rate of pay for each?

2. On whose desk does the buck stop?

3. What are the prospects for advancement within the organization?

4. What are the prospects for continuation in the position?

5. How much money does each have to spend to keep their job?

Posted by: jales4 on November 23 2010 5:37 AM

How many firefighters does Prince George have compared to Kamloops and Kelowna?

Posted by: roadking on November 23 2010 7:32 AM

Aw –give it to them and stop the grumbling, they deserve it for the great job there are doing, quality people don’t come cheep. Hell in ten years or so we may even have a down sector ,good enough that people may actually want to live there.And that will offset some of the cost.Keep up the good work.

Posted by: IMO on November 23 2010 7:58 AM

This city is 111 MILLION dollars in debt and as far as I am concerned there should be no pay increases while this is the case. Every year they give THEMSELVES raises without having to be accountable to the PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY PAY THESE HIGH WAGES. Add this to the salaries on the provincial and federal levels and the numbers are mind boggling. Schools, seniors and hospitals suffer because of this because THEY COME FIRST. I think the people should vote on pay increases. No where else on this planet do people give themselves a raise without asking THE BOSS. I could just see how long the rest of us would keep our jobs if we gave ourselves raises even when the company was losing money. Cheers taxpayers!

Posted by: alex1212 on November 23 2010 8:01 AM

police, firefighters,ambulance persons,and hospitals should be on top,then,,,bring in the pencil pushers,that would make sense to a reasonable person but ,,,,,,,nothing these days is ,my truck still wont start

Posted by: newly retired on November 23 2010 12:33 PM

jales4, Prince George has 117 members and respond to over 4600 calls per year according to the city web site, also according to the city site we have 70981 residents in PG. Kelowna has 117 full time and 59 paid on call volunteers they respond to 10,099 calls according to teir web site. Kamloops I could't find out. Kelowna has a much more informative site than either Kamloops or PG.

Posted by: jales4 on November 23 2010 5:33 PM

So why does PG have the same amount of firefighters for half the call volume?

Posted by: jales4 on November 23 2010 5:33 PM

And why, given this level of staffing vs. call volumes, are they working so much overtime (making over $90,000/year).

Posted by: Harbinger on November 23 2010 6:16 PM

I wonder which town will be the first to start a trend to give taxpayers a break and downsize? Or maybe they are like the big three telecom providers who will not compete with each other to undercut their buddies?

Posted by: Palopu on November 23 2010 6:59 PM

Just because the PG salaries are in line with peer groups doesnt make them right. In fact I would argue that they are all over paid, especially when you consider their benefits, holidays, and pensions. Plus if you fire them they usually walk away with 250 to 400 thousand big ones, no questions asked.

Kelowna with a much larger population should probably not be in the peer group, however it is interesting to see the difference in pay for the Mayors. Kelowna Mayor gets $58,000.00. Mayor Moffat years ago stated that the Mayors position in Prince George was at best a part time job, that could be done in the afternoons without any problem. Probably the same thing to-day. If our Mayors can travel all over the world, hob nobbing, and basically having a good time at tax payers expense, why should we also pay them a top salary???

It would appear that Kelowna has it right.

Posted by: NMG on November 23 2010 8:57 PM

"Mayor Moffat years ago stated that the Mayors position in Prince George was at best a part time job, that could be done in the afternoons without any problem"

Good grief Palopu, Mayor Moffat ran the show 30-40 years ago. You don't think the job has changed since then? The mayor and the city have probably spent more time on air quality issues in the last 6 months alone than Mayor Moffat did during his entire 10 year term, LOL.

I also highly doubt Mayor Moffat had to worry about increasing gang violence in the city, PG becoming a regional hub for commercial crime, grow ops showing up in every corner of the town, urban sprawl and the costs to support it, the desire to diversify the city beyond pulp and lumber mills, etc.

It's actually laughable to compare the PG of the 1970's to the PG of 2010 and honestly believe that they could be managed in the same manner. Wow.

Posted by: supertech on November 23 2010 11:06 PM

NO NO---the mayor spends most of his time in photo ops and cutting ribbons; that was a custom started by Colin Kinsley, remember?

Posted by: gus on November 24 2010 2:09 AM

"I wonder which town will be the first to start a trend to give taxpayers a break and downsize"

Penticton ... it was on here just a few days ago. They had an operations review and started laying off some people, including firefighters.

from May 2010
http://www.castanet.net/news/Penticton/53104/Core-Service-Review-leads-to-layoffs

From November 11
http://www.sunonline.ca/News/Story.aspx?ID=1313270

I am amazed the media in PG has not picked up on this. Shows how little local issues mean to the rest of the province, even when those local issues are also issues in other communities.

Posted by: gus on November 24 2010 2:15 AM

more detail here.

http://www.canada.com/entertainment/UPDATE+City+Penticton+lays+workers/3843664/story.html