Pay raise for Calgary councillors, mayor, many pledge to donate additional dollars

Calgary’s mayor and councillors are getting paid more in 2024, after a Tuesday meeting drew no motion to halt the raise that took effect in December. However, many of the municipal politicians have said they will donate their extra cash, rather than putting it in the bank.

City staff explained the increase is based on the average weekly earnings determined by Statistics Canada, and any salary increases go through the council compensation review committee.

Council was notified about the increase in December.

Despite some councillors apparently addressing their issues with the raise with Mayor Jyoti Gondek, no one put forward a motion for a freeze increase.

It’s something that even surprised people around the table, like Coun. Terry Wong.

“Which is why during council I asked a question, for those that spoke to the mayor previously about this — I hope they speak up and clarify their intentions — the fact that nobody did, surprises me,” he said.

Read more: Calgary City Council to discuss pay raise for mayor, councillors

Coun. Sonya Sharp was also surprised there was no motion raised.

“If there were members of council that approached the mayor about their concerns, then those members of council should have stepped up and brought a motion forward. The mayor herself could have removed herself from the chair and asked the deputy mayor to step in,” she said.

The increase adds an extra $2,800 to each councillor’s yearly pay — now more than $120,000 — and an extra $5,000 to the mayor’s — now over $213,000.

Couns. Dan Maclean, Terry Wong, Sharp, Richard Pootmans, Raj Dhaliwal, and Mayor Gondek publicly stated they would donate their salary boost to charity.

“People are upset, we’ve raised taxes three times in a row, we’ve three raises, I would’ve supported a motion to support a wage freeze but it’s already been done, the time to do that was in the fall,” said Maclean.

“I donate to charities regularly and this year will absolutely not be any different than previous years,” Gondek added.

During discussions, Coun. Courtney Walcott said when it comes to salary increases for council, a balance needs to be struck.

“As a teacher, I’m very used to the way that our love of the work, our love of the students, our love of the service is leveraged to push people to sacrifice time, energy, mental, and physical health to make the system run without paying the full amount of labour needed to make it run well.”

-With files from Logan Stein