AMHERST, N.S. – Members of Amherst town council have decided to step back from deciding on whether to give themselves a pay raise to offset money they’re losing because of changes to the federal Income Tax Act.
While staff forwarded a recommendation to make the salary adjustment, council opted to defer the matter until later so it can look into having an independent committee make decisions on how much council members are paid.
“I could not support the motion as it stood and was looking for a way that we could have an independent committee to set council remuneration,” Deputy Mayor Sheila Christie said following the Jan. 28 council meeting. “I don’t think it should be in the hands of council. I want staff to see what other municipal units do when it comes to independent committees.”
She said she would like to see the committee include people from the community so that it’s outside council’s hand.
Christie’s motion asked staff to come back with a report for February’s committee of the whole meeting.
Coun. Vince Byrne said council was caught in a no-win situation.
“If we say yes, people on social media will say we’re giving money to the feds; if we say no we’ll still be criticized as being overpaid,” Byrne said. “I know there are council members who miss work to attend council meetings and committee meetings. When you look at the overall picture, we can’t win.
“There’s a misconception about the amount of time and the financial commitment it takes to be a council. I would strongly recommend that people ask a councilor how many hours each month they spend on council business.”
Mayor David Kogon agreed with the decision to defer the decision because he too believes the decision on remuneration shouldn’t be made by council.
“Most people who work for an employer are told how much they are paid, so if we’re employed by the people it might be a good idea to have an independent body determine what the mayor, deputy mayor and councillors deserve to be paid,” Kogon said.
The mayor said it’s not about how much money council members make, it’s about avoiding the situation where take-home pay is reduced because of changes to the tax laws.
“That’s really what we’re debating,” he said. “The point wasn’t council wanting to make more money. The point was to counteract the tax change.”
He said most councils have decided to accept the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities recommendation to make the adjustment.
The staff report to the Jan. 21 committee of the whole meeting noted the proposed increase is directly related to the federal government’s decision to discontinue the practice of exempting one-third of council honorariums from income tax, effective Jan. 1, 2019.
As a result, council members will take home significantly less pay in 2019 than they did in 2018 if their remuneration isn’t increased.
The report indicated the majority of Nova Scotia municipalities have already increased the compensation to elected officials in order to compensate them for the federally ordered change, while a few jurisdictions deferred the matter to budget deliberations, but plan to make any adjustment retroactive to Jan. 1.
While Amherst has opted to explore having an independent committee decide council remuneration, the Municipality of Cumberland decided Jan. 23 not to make any change.
“We’ve decided not to make the change,” Warden Allison Gillis said. “We’re going to pay the tax. You know, when most people have a hit to their salary they don’t have the ability to increase their salary to make up the difference. As a council we were in agreement we would not raise our salary. We’re going to take the hit.”
Gillis said it would be hard to increase the amount of money they make as elected councillors after raising taxes last year. He said the county is also in the midst of several projects that are expensive. Increasing council remuneration at this time doesn’t make sense to him.
