The remuneration of the directors in the Cowichan Valley Regional District should be adjusted annually to B.C.’s Consumer Price Index as of Jan. 1 each year, the district’s governance committee is recommending to the board.
At its meeting on Sept. 3, the committee also recommended that directors’ compensation be adjusted to the median comparable rates in similar organizations.
A report conducted by Harbour West Consulting said that approach aligns with best practices of the Union of BC Municipalities, ensures competitiveness, prevents wage erosion, and would be transparent and consistent.
Currently, the remuneration for electoral area directors in the CVRD is $51,536, $22,704 for municipal directors, which is in addition to their pay from their municipality, and $34,647 for the chair of the board, which is on top of their pay as a director.
North Cowichan director Tek Manhas said having directors’ compensation adjusted annually to B.C.’s CPI would be a fair evaluation, and that North Cowichan follows the same practice for its council.
“I think it keeps us in line with the cost of living,” he said.
The issue of remuneration for directors in the CVRD has been contentious for years as the board is required by the province to decide its own pay, which many regard as a conflict of interest, and the fact that directors, specifically electoral area directors, have different workloads.
As well, there are concerns that the low remuneration directors receive and the long hours the job requires discourage many good director candidates from running for office.
Mill Bay/Malahat director and board chair Kate Segall put forward another motion, which was successful, that directors’ remuneration rates be reviewed once per term by an external party, with each review to include a comparative analysis of remuneration of elected officials in similar regional districts, and the review be initiated no later than one year prior to the next municipal election.
“I know there might be some differing opinions on this because a citizen’s committee has been brought up a couple of times, but I think having a third party conduct a review each term is really important for our transparency,” she said.
But Saltair/Gulf Islands director Jesse McClinton said that he’s against having CVRD’s directors comparing themselves to other politicians that are facing the same challenges in terms of "downward political pressure" on their compensation.
“I don’t think we’ve addressed any of the core issues that have been brought up by several directors and so I can’t support jumping to an independent review while there are many large questions that haven’t been addressed satisfactorily, “ he said. “I can’t support that at this time but, hopefully, we’ll get there.”
Cowichan Lake/Skutz Falls Ian Morrison said he’s discouraged by the directors’ fear of a perceived conflict of interest when it comes to their compensation when the provincial government has said they are not in a conflict of interest.
“I don’t support this and I don’t think we need to go external every term,” he said.
“This is putting something so structural in place and I think it’s to avoid a sense of responsibility that the province has said that we have. I’m not in agreement with the UBCM process either. I think that 16 relatively intelligent, informed and hard working individuals can do a good job of [putting together] a compensation package for the next board.”
Cobble Hill director Mike Wilson disagreed and said deciding remuneration should not be left to directors.
He said the whole point of the external review is that it would achieve exactly what HWC has done for the committee, and that’s to look at everything and pull it all together into one comprehensive document, as opposed to the directors trying to do the same thing with the limited resources they have.
“There is a perception in the public of politicians, and it’s real,” Wilson said.
“We should be able to say to the public that this is what we have done and that we have not voted for ourselves here, regardless of what the process says. We need to be able to be squeaky clean and say that this is what somebody else said without any interference from us.”
