Westlock County councillors’ salaries and expenses will be posted monthly to the municipality’s website beginning next year, but there will be no maximum expense claim.
At the county’s Nov. 12 meeting, Coun. Jim Wiese brought forward a proposed motion that would see those figures posted quarterly, and also impose a $9,000 annual limit on councillor expenses.
Councillors agreed unanimously to amend the motion so that the figures are posted monthly instead of quarterly, but were split on whether to impose a maximum.
Wiese said the intent of the initial motion was to set a high standard to make a “philosophical change” within the organization, which would then ideally trickle down through the administration to county staff. That change, he said, would have to be made in the early days of the new council’s mandate.
“If we set the standard so low that there’s really no standard, then what we have done is set no standard at all,” he said. “If we philosophically do not change initially, at the start of our mandate, we will never change.”
Other councillors argued that the $9,000 maximum was too low, considering their obligations, and in any event wasn’t necessary as posting the expenses online would serve to make them accountable.
“If it’s posted, a councillor should be able to, if he goes to $10,000, explain why it’s $10,000,” Coun. Albert St. Louis said.
“I don’t know why we need a maximum if it’s going to be posted every month.”
Reeve Bud Massey said his main concern with imposing a cap is that a councillor might then be limited in his ability to represent the county.
If a councillor lives further away, and chooses to become involved with more boards and commissions, then that his expenses might go up to reflect the extra work and travelling.
“It seems unfair to me that we would set a limit and then a councillor would not be able to perform his duties to the fullest extent of his ability,” he said.
Wiese said the intention of the motion is not to limit a councillor’s ability, but to require the councillor to take a close look at which conferences and seminars are worth attending in terms of value brought back to the county.
“There’s a little cottage industry built around all these conventions and seminars that are put on and you can go to one every week, but what are you going to get out of it? You could go to something every two weeks, and most of this stuff isn’t relevant to what we do as a county,” he said.
Councillors Ron Zadunayski and Don Savage both took issue with the suggestion that councillors attend seminars and conferences that aren’t relevant to county business, or that councillors aren’t being as fiscally responsible.
“I don’t feel we should post a limit of any kind,” Savage said. “There’s a policy in place as to what councillors can claim and can’t claim, and it’s a very good policy.”
Furthermore, Savage noted, the decision to send a councillor to conferences is usually made by council as a whole in the form of a motion.
CAO Ed LeBlanc said while specific breakdowns of what individual councillors spend on expenses wasn’t available at the meeting, the average for mileage alone is $533 per month, or about $6,400 annually, which would leave roughly $2,600 for other expenses if the maximum were to be enforced.
According to the county’s 2012 audited financial statement, councillors all incurred more than $15,000 worth expenses each, with the exception of the Division 3 councillors, whose combined expenses were just over $12,000. That seat, however, was vacant between the time former Coun. Maureen Kubinec took a leave of absence to run for MLA and the time Coun. Jim Wiese was sworn in after the subsequent by-election.
In terms of salaries, councillors earned $23,373 each while the reeve earned $25,716. Those salaries are the equivalent of weekly salaries of about $450 and $495 respectively.
