Comment
Council, heal thyself
It is time—time to fix the mistake made 24 years ago. It’s time to establish a proper council structure, pay them appropriately and give them the resources to do the job. There is an opportunity here and over the next few of months to make a transformative and lasting change to our municipal government. It is not very often one can mend an original sin. Don’t allow it to slip away.
The County has too many council members. On its face, more councillors would seem like a good thing— more eyes to scrutinize reports and issues and a broader representation of a diverse community. The truth is that it doesn’t work. We have two decades of experience and mounds of evidence underlining this sad fact.
This column has detailed the challenges of council size many, many times so I won’t belabour the point now—other than to observe that the quality of decision-making is impaired when fourteen people, even wellmeaning folks, are doing the deliberating.
The fact is that Shire Hall has evolved, improved and now generates more organizational horsepower than it has done before. Council structure has not kept up. Inexplicably, it did away with standing committees—a way of splitting up responsibility that enabled council members to become expert in one facet of the municipality’s business—either planning, finance, community services or works. But some councillors didn’t trust their colleagues, while others wanted their fingers in every hot item. In any event, this arrangement was busted up. (An important signal was missed there.) Today, all fourteen council members consider every item.
The upshot is that Shire Hall is processing more files, more reports and fixing many more big issues than before. But scrutiny by Council has not kept up. How could it? Council members must review and digest hundreds of pages of files every week. Then they must try to have a meaningful debate. It is overwhelming. And Council is overwhelmed.
How would making Council smaller—say six members plus a mayor—make matters less overwhelming? Fewer council members mean we could pay them properly. We currently compensate council members with a bit over $20,000 a year. It is a ridiculous, bordering on insulting, level of compensation for what is, by any standard, a crap ton of work. I understand dollar-a-year service in times of national distress, but paying folks less than minimum wage in normal course to govern a municipality that spends $67 million each year and a waterworks utility that spends another $6 million, is absurd. It means only a narrow subset of our community can serve.
Let’s be clear, the work of council members is hard. The expectations are high, and the volume of work is immense—if and when done properly. They hear mostly from residents with a problem. And from folks who think they are the problem. Then we pay them a pittance for the trouble.
So far, seven people have raised their hands to fill 13 council seats in October. The nomination window has been open for a month. There is still plenty of time—and the roster will surely fill in. But by whom? A handful of first-time councillors have signalled they won’t do it again. How long will we keep ignoring these signals?
The County isn’t necessarily an outlier in terms of the pitiful compensation for its elected folks. Many smaller Ontario communities pay their Council in the same range as Prince Edward County. But most other municipal councils manage a fraction of the volume of files the County council does. At amalgamation, we chose to be a single-tier municipality—meaning our council manages every municipal responsibility from waterworks, firefighting, and road reconstruction to cutting the grass at cemeteries and ball diamonds. Most non-urban municipalities operate with two tiers—one typically regionally focused, the other group focused on keeping the place tidy and serving residents.
While Shire Hall has muscled up to meet this vast and complex array of responsibilities, council governance structure has not.
So here’s the pitch: halve the number of council members, pay them double, provide dollars for an assistant (one per two councillors), elect each council member at-large (three rural, three urban), pay the mayor more and delegate more authority to the senior leadership.
This will produce smaller agendas, streamlined meetings, quicker decision-making and more effective governance.
There will be significant turnover at the next election. Now is the time to put the issue back on the table. A ballot question if need be. Clearly worded. Unambiguous. And binding.
Having listened to the Committee of the Whole meeting of June 23rd discussing council remuneration, I’m concerned that someone can say they are working 16-18 hours a day at their regular job and then say they can adequately carry out their responsibilities as a Councillor on a part time basis for a County with a $65 million annual budget and contemplating a $100 million capital spending plan for Wellington ALONE. There were references by the “part timers” that Council work took only 5-6 hours a week. As a taxpayer, this is not reassuring. One councillor said his job was only to do “policy”. Funny, I would have thought (detailed) oversight would have been a fair amount of the job!
Banging the drum again Rick! Six councilors earning $40K with responsibility of the entire County, with half from urban centers likely with little to no knowledge of rural challenges? For it to work, then the council would have to adhere to the Official Plan and allow development ONLY in urban centers, protect our heritage, our farmland-not just prime ag, our natural corridors and linkages and respect the intent of the OP. What makes you think six “at large” councilors are up to that challenge even at double the rate? It’s more than 3x the job. Perhaps our budget should allow for properly paid planners, and a sufficient number with the specialization needed, to get a handle on development in PEC. Maybe then it would work. But of course, you will still have outcries in urban centers saying “not in my back yard”… but then whose?
We are a community of neighborhoods (communities) that intertwine yet still have significantly different cultural heritage, landscapes and needs. The north end is different than the south end. Priorities differ in each community. How much time will six councilors have to meet with residents and understand each issue and its impact in each area? This could silence the residents even more.
Interesting pitch but before selling it to the public, perhaps some greater thought should go into it. The idea gained no ground the last # of times it came before the people…perhaps you are hoping the influx of new people to the county will make a difference this go around.
Bravo! Exactly. Having served on a number of boards, everyone knows that when they grow beyond 7 members the board becomes less effective.
The feds and provincial government should also provide councilors with a charitably deduction for the gap between actual pay and the value of the role.
We recently advertised for a Human Resources Coordinator at Shire Hall. The role required a college diploma and 3 years of relevant experience. The pay scale showed total comp in the range of $70 to 90 k…. how is it possible that one of the lowest level employees in a less critical functional area is paid 4x that of a councilor?
Keep up the good work WT!