Friday, June 9, 2017

Growing civic bureaucracy adds to upper tier of salary disclosures

June makes for the final bit of budget work for Prince Rupert City Council as the Finance Department provides the final Statements on the city's accounts from the year previous

The ebb and flow of hiring and retirement has kept the final amount of salary distribution pretty well at the same level as 2015's documentation.

However the increase in civic staff, a hiring process that has picked up its pace since this council took office, has delivered more city staff members to the upper tiers of the salary schedules over the course of the last 365 days.

Those findings come from the annual release of civic employee remuneration and Expenses, a document which is included as part of this year's Statement of Financial Information for 2016, with council set to review the City's Financial Managers Report at Monday's Council session.

The annual listings of those employees making more than $75,000 is required to be disclosed by the municipality as part of the Financial Information Regulations, the statement is usually released as part of the final stream of financial information in June.

This year finds an increase of 13 employees making their way to the disclosure list from this time last year, with 65 names listed in the 2016 SOFI disclosures, compared to the 52 names recorded the year before.

A number of positions created by the current Council in their first few years appears to account for a good portion of that growth.

As employees holding such positions as Communications Manager, Assistant Corporate Administrator, Manager of Community Development, Recreation Coordinator and Assistant Operations Manager to name a few, all move onto the $70,000 plus salary schedule this year.

Top end salaries for 2016 that were provided to those working in the upper level of Civic Administration included:

City Manager Robert Long
Remuneration and Taxable Benefits -- $237,139
Payment in lieu of Employer Pension contribution -- $18,414
Training and Related travel expenses -- $259
Business Travel and Other expenses -- $18,688 

City Financial Office Corinne Bomben
Remuneration and Taxable Benefits -- $148,382
Training and Travel expenses -- $6,607
Business Travel and Other Expenses -- $5,326

City Planner Zeno Krekic
Remuneration and Taxable Benefits -- $130,232
Training and Travel Expenses $2,832
Business Travel $526

Corporate Administrator Rory Mandryk
Remuneration and Taxable Benefits -- $126,755 
Business Travel and Other Expenses -- $5,424

As with the expense review for the City Council members, the City does not provide for a larger breakdown of expenses that are claimed by civic employees.

Among the list of 65 names that make for this years list are 16 members of the Prince Rupert Fire/Rescue Department, along with three 911 dispatchers are among the SOFI listings for the past year.

The total salaries and expenses from those listings accounted for just over 2.1 million dollars for 2016.

The remainder of the positions that are listed span a number of departments both administrative and operations.

The total remuneration for employees making over 75,000 dollars came to $6,570,714, while those civic employees making less that the $75,000 mark totalled $6,849,229.

Combined the totals for Remuneration and Expenses came to close to $13.5 million dollars for 2016

The full documentation on Civic salaries can be found as part of the City Council agenda package for the June 12th Regular Council session the listings are published on pages 25 to 28.

Not listed as a department, but included as a payment to suppliers is payment of $3,368,547 to the Receiver General for Canada for RCMP E Division. That marks the amount that the City of Prince Rupert pays to the Federal Government for its contract policing agreement with the RCMP.

Once the SOFI report is received by City Council this Monday, it will become part of the permanent record of Financial information that is archived on the City website, offering up an opportunity to make year to year comparisons when it comes to City payroll spending.

For more items related to the City's Budget planning see our archive page here, a wider review of City Discussion topics can be found on our Council Archive page here.



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