The question isn’t whether Wellington County staff deserves a raise for the next three years - it’s whether taxpayers can afford it.
County council has voted to send a salary recommendation back to committee for more discussion, specifically directing that instead of using the consumer price index as a guide for the increase, to base it on historic and projected salary increases in the private and public sector.
The county’s AF&P committee was recommending three per cent a year for the next three years, in line with the rising cost of living as measured by the consumer price index.
Such increases are unheard of these days. Business, if they’re not laying off and cutting back, are giving out zero increases or minimal percentages.
When was the last time you received anything close to a nine per cent raise over three years?
Apparently, this level of increase is needed to both attract good people to the county and to ensure staff don’t fall behind the rising cost of living (as labelling it an “economic adjustment” tied to the CPI would suggest.)
No doubt the AF&P committee feels its only fair that staff not fall behind in the cost of living - and they’re right.
It’s not fair at all that most people have to make do with zero or one per cent raises when prices - the cost of living - are going up by something like three per cent a year.
It’s not fair at all that big business has used the recession as an excuse to layoff thousands, close plants, and “rationalize” so they’re making more profit now than ever before - while bleating about hard economic times and the need to cut back even more.
But this isn’t about fairness, as much as affordability and, to some extent, principles.
County salaries are largely funded by tax dollars. According to figures given out at the meeting, each three per cent increase in staff salaries (plus benefits) translates into some $900,000 in cost, which in turn is slightly more than a one percent increase in the county levy - the money you pay in property taxes to the county.
Hiking taxes simply to give arguably already well-paid staff a raise to keep them ahead of inflation doesn’t seem like the right thing to do when the people paying those taxes are scrabbling to make ends meet, facing job insecurity, potential layoffs, or have to cobble together part-time work to pay the bills - or are subsisting on pensions that certainly don’t increase at the rate of cost of living.
We certainly don’t think municipal employees should be destitute, or forced to work in Factory Act conditions - and we’re quite sure there are many county employees at the lower end of the salary grids who could use three, five, even 20 per cent increases.
But when everyone is preaching restraint, and many are being forced to live with restraint, we think a fair increase in line with what the average person working in the community would get this year, would be much more palatable to taxpayers.
Guest editorial by Francis Baker