Councillors Pay Freeze An Opportunity To Show Leadership
Monday will present an opportunity to watch the degree of self interest on Council up close and personal. Councillor Walker has moved a motion to freeze the salaries of his colleagues at the 2009 rate of $99,153 (up from $2,348 from 2008, as members of Council failed to vote to freeze their salaries as a whole last year). Walker’s motion is the right thing to do at a time like this, and probably doesn’t go far enough considering the City is calling for 5% cuts to all budgets across the board. I think it would be reasonable for Councillors to shave 5% off their salaries as a demonstration of goodwill and commitment to do their part to help the City solve the financial crunch that is the result of their spending habits in the first place.
In 2008 when Councillor Walker tried to freeze salaries for 2008, the following members of Council voted to prevent his motion from being debated by Council, protecting their raises.
They were: Paul Ainslie (Ward 43); Brian Ashton (Ward 36); Sandra Bussin (Ward 32); Shelley Carroll (Ward 33); Raymond Cho (Ward 42); Janet Davis (Ward 31); Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38); Michael Del Grande (Ward 39); Frank Di Giorgio (Ward 12); John Filion (Ward 23); Paula Fletcher (Ward 30); Adam Giambrone (Ward 18); Suzan Hall (Ward 1); Adrian Heaps (Ward 35); Norm Kelly (Ward 40); Gloria Lindsay Luby (Ward 4); Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7); Pam McConnell (Ward 28); Joe Mihevc (Ward 21); Mayor David Miller; Howard Moscoe (Ward 15); Joe Pantalone (Ward 19); John Parker (Ward 26); Gord Perks (Ward 14); Anthony Perruzza (Ward 8); Kyle Rae (Ward 27); Bill Saundercook (Ward 13); David Shiner (Ward 24); Karen Stintz (Ward 16); Adam Vaughan (Ward 20).
Being an election year, it will be interesting to watch the footwork undertaken this time around. With a $500 million dollar deficit asking Councillors to freeze their salaries in my opinion doesn’t go far enough and is beyond reasonable. I personally would be more inclined, as I suggested earlier, to see Councillors shave 5% off of their salaries, their staff and office budgets for a total savings of nearly $900,000 ($895,619.56). It would be a painless start to filling the giant hole our Council has created and will no doubt expect us to fill with tax increases, user fee hikes and service cuts. While they are at it, they could also cut out the catering of their meetings, for a savings in the $150,000 range. People making far less either brown bag it or buy their lunch at work and it is reasonable to expect in the 90 minutes they have mid day on days Council is in session that they too could source their own lunch.
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Tags: City of Toronto Pay Freeze, Councillor Michael Walker, Councillor Rob Ford, Michael Walker, Pay Freeze, Rob Ford, Toronto Budget 2010, Toronto Budget Deficit, Toronto City Council Pay Decrease, Toronto City Council Pay Freeze
