Metro Vancouver board chair Greg Moore is defending a decision to implement a one-time retirement payment for outgoing municipal politicians who sit on the regional body.
The Port Coquitlam mayor said Wednesday the move ensures local and regional governments will be able to attract a range of candidates from various points in their career.
He called the payout a “transition allowance,” noting that some people who are in the beginning or early stages of their working life may need some time to apply for jobs or upgrade their training after they leave politics.
“If you’re in the middle of your career and you decide to serve your community by running for local government… there is some time it is going to take to go back to your career,” he told The Tri-City News. “The way the system currently works is, two weeks after the municipal election, you are no longer receiving any remuneration and it might take you longer than that to get back to your career.”
Because of the financial uncertainty, Moore said younger people tend to stay away from local government.
“If you look at the average age of people serving in a full-time capacity around the region, they are not the norm of what our communities look like,” he said. “So this is what we can do to attract a whole broad spectrum of people into local government.”
The decision to make the allowance payment retroactive to 2007 came out of discussions with board members who felt it was important to recognize the work done by current members, Moore said.
Various media reports stated that six of the 39 Metro Vancouver board members voted against the allowance but Moore said only four asked to have their no vote recorded.
The Tri-City News reached out for comment from Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart, who serves on the Metro board but was away on holidays and didn’t vote on the changes. In an email, he noted that the two alternate Metro Vancouver representatives for Coquitlam, councillors Terry O’Neill and Brent Asmundson, voted against the retirement allowance.
Stewart said he was “not comfortable” with the decision to make the payments retroactive. “If the purpose is to ensure we attract good people to be willing to serve on councils and at Metro, that can’t be accomplished retroactively,” he said.
Don Bradley, Metro Vancouver’s media relations manager, broke down how the allowance works.
He said all current board members are eligible for the retroactive one-time payment, which works out to an average of $1,100 for every year a representative has served to a maximum of 10 years.
In future, the rate will be calculated at 10.2 per cent of a board member’s annual income, which he noted works out to approximately $1,560 for every year served. (Alternates will not be eligible for the allowance.)
The retroactive payment will cost $498,000 while payments in the future are expected to cost the regional district $62,500 annually, according to a Metro Vancouver staff report.
“This is a small step in the right direction to remove barriers for those considering public service,” Bradley said. “Quite frankly, it should have happened a long time ago.”
Not everyone agrees.
Coquitlam’s O’Neill, who serves as an alternate on the board for Stewart, told The Tri-City News earlier this week he voted against the retirement allowance and was particularly concerned with the fact the one-time payments were retroactive to 2007.
Coun. Chris Wilson also weighed in on the issue on Facebook, stating he was “embarrassed to be a city councillor right now.”
“We work our butts off to become elected officials, knowing all along what the pay is,” he said. “If you don’t like it, either don’t run or run on a platform of increasing the pay.”
gmckenna@tricitynews.com
@gmckennaTC
