Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Nanaimo City Wages -- Confusing?


So How Much Are Wages and Benefits At City Hall?

Sorting Out The Puzzle

Depending on how thorough you happen to be you might be forgiven if you think the total wages and benefits paid by the city of Nanaimo to all workers including firemen and police is much lower than it is in reality.

At the city council meeting of June 17 the Municipal Report for 2012 was presented as was the Statement of Financial Information (SOFI) and both reports contain line items that declare what the cost of wages and salaries and benefits are at city hall. You might think the numbers would be the same, but you would be mistaken.

Let me clear it up for you.

The SOFI report declares remuneration totalling $46,500,457. Sounds like a lot, but not all that bad considering the size of the city.

The Municipal report has wages and salaries broken down by departments with a consolidated total of $55,570,663. This number is $9 million more than is reported in the SOFI document.

So which one is correct? They both are, the reason for the difference is that the SOFI document does not report all levels of benefits an employee receives such as the employers portion of their pension benefit or their health benefit etc.

So the real number is $55,570,663? That still sounds like it could be acceptable except it is still not the complete number, as it does not include the wages and benefits of the RCMP.

The RCMP salaries and benefits total $15,034,427 so the real number for the 'all-in' cost of wages, salaries and benefits to the people who provide the services in Nanaimo is a whopping $70,605,090.

Now if you consider that the total amount collected from taxes in 2012 was $87,524,673 which means that 80.66% of every tax dollar collected paid someones' wages and benefits and did not put asphalt in one pothole, or buy one new shiny firetruck.

Sustainable?

Affordable?

Justifiable?

allvoices

1 comment:

  1. Fortunate are those that are employed by the city of Nanaimo, what about the rest of us. Tell me there is an up side.
    There has to be a substantial revenue generated to see a justification for this degree of labour cost, over and above tax revenue. Even a privately operated business would not afford more than a 25% labour cost, and hope to survive.
    How are the operating expenses being paid, what about utilities, fuel, insurance, maintenance, and repairs, and the myriad of other expenses involve in keeping a person employed, where is this money coming from.
    There has to be a justification for this labour cost, other than the cost of being unionized.


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