City to revise remuneration recommendation

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — City Council has decided to revise the recommendation that would have seen Dugal Smith & Associates complete a review of their salaries for $20,000.

There were three companies short-listed in total, graded on completeness of the submission and project appreciation, experience, reference, and price.

Dugal Smith & Associates had the highest ranking score to the City, with 75. Following was Sainas Consult Ltd. with 69, charging a flat-rate of $6,500. Lamb & Associates offered to do the review for $10,000, plus $140 per hour for additional requests.

The biggest issue that came up is how much of the information that $20,000 for the review would unearth was known to the City already.

“My only concern is, it seems like a lot of money when we’re looking at reviewing the remuneration for Council,” said Councillor Dan Davies, saying he’s not in favour of spending that amount ‘for someone to tell us we need a 2 per cent increase.’

“To me, it doesn’t seem like value in that regard, it seems very expensive.”

To remedy this issue, Mayor Lori Ackerman set forward a recommendation that City Staff provide their preferred proponent with additional information, to cut back on the work for the consultants.

City Council adopted the Council Remuneration and Benefits Policy in 2010, running effective until November 2017.

“The 2010 Policy provided Mayor and Council with a two percent increase every three years equating to approximately 0.67% per year,” the report from city staff reads. “A review of this data suggests Council’s remuneration has not sustained the buying power of 2010. This may be due to growth realized today not being known at the time of the last review. Growth and change impact workload.”

According to the report, Canadian CPI has increased by an average of 2.1% per year, and market increases in property values in Fort St. John increased by 8.26% per year. As well, new construction growth in Fort St. John saw an approximate increase of 2.9% annually.