{"id":1168,"date":"2013-04-02T13:36:27","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T17:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=1168"},"modified":"2013-04-09T12:19:29","modified_gmt":"2013-04-09T16:19:29","slug":"mayor-to-get-pay-boost-in-2014-2018-term","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mayor-to-get-pay-boost-in-2014-2018-term\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor to get pay boost in 2014-2018 term"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aurora\u2019s next mayor for the 2014-2018 term of Council will receive a $9,000 boost, but other perks and benefits recommended by the Council Compensation Committee were rejected by elected officials last week.<\/p>\n

The salary increase for the mayor was approved 5 \u2013 3 with Councillors Chris Ballard, Evelyn Buck, and Wendy Gaertner voting against the move. Councillor Sandra Humfryes was not present at the meeting. Much of the other recommendations, including income protection for the mayor, long-term disability, and continuing to pay the mayor\u2019s salary \u201cin the event of extended illness or disability\u201d until long-term disability payments come on board, were defeated outright. One measure defeated on a tie, however, was providing end of service \u201ctransition\u201d payments to the mayor if he or she has served two consecutive terms of Council. <\/p>\n

Going into the meeting, this was set at one term, but following amendments from Councillors John Gallo and Michael Thompson, it was set for two consecutive. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe only bullet point I have an issue with is \u2018must serve one full term\u2019 to qualify,\u201d said Councillor Gallo. \u201cI think the intent of this is you\u2019re pulling an individual out of the employment world for an extended period of time and then when they get back into it, it is to help them integrate into whatever they choose to do. For one term, which is four years, I am not convinced enough time has passed in order to have to implement this type of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillors Ballard, Buck, Gaertner and Paul Pirri voted against the measure, with Councillor Buck being the most vocal in her opposition. She said running for office is a conscious decision one makes and there should not be compensation for people having to leave the regular workforce in order to serve.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody has to run for Council,\u201d she said. \u201cEveryone makes a choice and there are far more people out there who are unable to take four years out of their working life and run as a candidate for Council. It would be out of the question. There are certain individuals on whom it is an advantage to be in public office. It gives the high visibility. A full term for a lawyer would establish a law office. People tend to trust elected officials \u2013 why, I don\u2019t know \u2013 but it does tend to give someone [clout].\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mayor, as a member of Regional Council, receives end of term transition payments from the Region, a month\u2019s salary for every year served on Regional Council up to 12 months.<\/p>\n

The Council Compensation Ad-Hoc Committee, which was established by Council and made up of citizens to review the current salaries and expenses of Council and make recommendations on how much the next crop should make, also shied away from recommending health benefits to Councillors. <\/p>\n

This was a lengthy topic of discussion when the recommendations initially came forward in February before reconsiderations began on March 19. Last week\u2019s meeting followed a similar track with Councillor Gaertner renewing her concerns over what she perceived as an inequity on Aurora\u2019s part when compared to other area municipalities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it wrong that all these other municipalities that were surveyed, no matter their population, no matter whether Councillors are full time or part time, Aurora is the only one that does not provide group health to its Councillors,\u201d she said. \u201cPersonally I find that is offensive. Why would we be the only municipality that wouldn\u2019t do that for Councillors that wanted that? I don\u2019t mind being the odd man out in this case. I think it is wrong and unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the previous week\u2019s meeting, some Councillors, such as Councillor Ballard, pointed out that many Councillors work for companies and organizations that offer health coverage to their employees. After this week\u2019s meeting, however, Council voted to allow its members to opt in to municipal health coverage at their own expense.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Aurora\u2019s next mayor for the 2014-2018 term of Council will receive a $9,000 boost, but other perks and benefits recommended by the Council Compensation Committee were rejected by elected officials last week. The salary increase for the mayor was approved 5 \u2013 3 with Councillors Chris Ballard, Evelyn Buck, and Wendy Gaertner […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-iQ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 14:10:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}