Cobalt council has voted on an elected official’s remuneration policy.
The new policy will see elected officials receive an annual pay increase based on the 2022 pay rate plus CPI (consumer price index) to a maximum of 2.5 per cent.
The decision was reached at council's regular meeting on December 19.
Council looked at several different scenarios and each was presented in turn. Councillors Harry Cooper and Doug Wilcox voted for a zero per cent increase, but that was defeated.
Councillor Angela Hunter noted to council that there had already been a policy in place "which everyone at one point did think was fair."
Wilcox acknowledged that a previous council had agreed on a remuneration policy but "everybody knows the situation is quite different this year and will probably continue to be different next year. CPI is now a significantly higher number than was contemplated by the previous council."
He explained that was why he had suggested that council should look at a zero per cent increase next year "until we get ourselves back in a better budget situation."
Mayor Angela Adshead noted that the council had previously voted to claw back their 2023 remunerations to 2022 rates.
Council was offered other scenarios but rejected each which included a 2022 rate plus 2023 CPI to a maximum of one per cent, 1.5 per cent or two per cent.
A vote of five to two saw council settle on a 2022 rate plus 2023 CPI to a maximum of 2.5 per cent.
Wilcox had proposed an amendment which would require that after the town's budget was set each year, council would have to review the proposed increase before it was implemented. That proposal was defeated, however, with Wilcox and Cooper voting for it.
Councillors Pat Anderson, Gary Hughes, Angela Hunter, and Jim Starchuk, along with Adshead, approved the new remuneration policy.
Darlene Wroe is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with theTemiskaming Speaker. LJI is funded by the Government of Canada.
