Kelowna council votes 5-4 in support for wage increase

In a contentious vote, Kelowna City Council has approved a wage increase for themselves and future councils.

On Monday, council voted in favour of an amendment to the council remuneration adjustments, which will see the half of the wage increase implemented immediately and the other half at the beginning January 2025.

There is also an option for council members to opt out of the wage increase.

Although the motion to increase the pay for mayor and councillor position was passed, with councillors Mohini Singh, Ron Cannan, Rick Webber and Gord Lovegrove opposed.

The matter was first brought to the council table on Mar. 25 when city staff brought forward a report that said Kelowna City Council’s remuneration had fallen “significantly” behind comparable municipalities in BC.

The goal of increasing the remuneration was to remove any potential barriers deterring people from running for office while not allowing it to be so high that “as to negate the concept of public service that motivates individuals to run for office in the first place,” according to a staff report.

Before the amended vote on Monday, Kelowna’s mayor earned $126,497.29 and councillors earned $42,991.14, which was based on CPI for Vancouver.

The increase will see that bumped to $135,848 and $50,535 for the mayor and councillors respectively.

In January 2025, that will go up to $145,200 for the mayor and $58,080 for councillors, which is 40% of what the mayor would make.

Mayor Tom Dyas acknowledged the "awkward" situation council members were in, but said it takes courage to vote in this type of wage increase that would be effective immediately for the current term.

“This is a difficult thing to do. It is not easy to sit in front of the public (...) I come from the private sector. If I’m looking for something I just work harder, it's just as straightforward as that and that’s what I’ve done for 37, 38 years,” Dyas said.

“In this situation, recognizing how hard all of you work and myself included in that, it comes into a public forum. When we look at basically the remuneration that we’re receiving at this particular point in time was even half of what the municipalities were receiving across the (province) we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Dyas said the only reason the wage increase has been brought forward is because of what council members were doing within their capacity in Canada’s fastest growing municipality.

He added that there's no reason why councillors and the mayor should be sitting at the lowest end of the pay scale compared to other municipalities in the province.

“It takes courage to basically have this discussion and, regrettably, it was only dealt with Consumer Price Indexing (CPI) over the last 10 to 12 years,” Dyas said.

Coun. Loyal Wooldridge, who was not present at the last meeting discussing remuneration, pointed to a lack of diversity around the council table, something he suggested could be linked to the existing pay scale.

“I really see this as a move for equity and accessibility in this space and, unfortunately, it hasn't been done in the past and so now we’re coming in last in a corporation thats doing over a billion dollars year of investment,” he said, adding that he can’t think of a private company that would expect that much of a board of directors.

“Courageous leadership is having these tough discussions in a public setting. To realize that the demands on what we’re dealing with now is (sic) very different from 30 years ago. We’re dealing with complex social files. We're dealing with extremely complex development files and to do this job properly, you can’t be working another full time job to supplement it. I tried to do it. I had to sell my business to do this full time.”

Wooldridge said he thought a majority of council were “people of privilege” and believed that he thought the increase would address that.

“If we’re to bring more people in and attract more people to these seats, whether they’re young people or people with more underrepresented voices. We have to set them up for success,” he said.

Under the opt out clause, if a council member chooses not to take the raise, they have to notify the city clerk in writing within 30 days of adoption of the bylaw.

Those councillors would remain at the pre-adjusted remuneration but the new wage would go into effect when the 2026 council term begins.

Coun. Lovegrove said the opt out clause worried him.

“I think it is degrading a team, and I’ve got to know everybody's heart around this table, that has been working really effectively in getting lots done,” he said.

“I want it to be an all or nothing, I want everything to be an all or nothing.”

He put forward a motion to remove the opt out clause, however, it was defeated.

Coun. Mohini Singh acknowledged the work council had done for the city, however, she said she could not support the wage increase.

“I’m still not comfortable on taking such a big increase, it doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t like the opt out clause, I don't want to see divisions on our council over this issues,” she said.

“I will not be supporting this. I will be voting against but I will say thank you for looking for ways to make this more smooth and not as contentious.”

Coun. Luke Stack said the changes would give future city councils to have a process in place so they can regularly increase wages and avoid the wages falling so far behind other BC cities.

Coun. Ron Cannan thought it would have been more appropriate for the City of Kelowna to carry out their own study on remuneration across BC municipalities instead of depending upon a report carried out by the City of Victoria.

He put forward a motion to defer the vote on the remuneration adjustment, however, it was also defeated.

The total cost of adjusted remuneration is $139,413.60 once the full increase is implemented and will be funded from financial savings identified through “implementation of the digital transformation strategy.”

City clerk Laura Bentley told council that there will be no impact on taxes for property owners.