Nanaimo City Staff Wages - The Sacred Cow

As everyone knows we are now into the budgeting process, although with the new format the city has adopted this year, they are greatly reducing the opportunity for public scrutiny or input. By design? Less scrutiny of this council may be seen as their best chance for re-election.

In years past we would have been presented with the draft budget in Dec. sometime and there would have been the opportunity at every council meeting until May to offer input into the budget. With this new process this year, we are not likely going to see the finished product until April which will greatly limit the opportunity for public scrutiny.

From observation of this council and Mayor Ruttan's previous council, it is most unlikely city council will do anything but get out the old rubber stamp and approve whatever staff tells them they need to spend.

City Staff Wages ------ The Sacred Cow

Even though city staff wages and benefits consume 80% of every dollar collected in taxes, this city council will likely approve another 2% - 3% wage increase, just to keep the peace even though some of the wage rates are clearly well above the private sector for equivalent work. The wage increases city council has given city staff has also consistently outstripped the consumer price index.

Example of the five lowest paid jobs at city hall based on the current pay scale
(based on 37.5 hr. work week and nothing added for benefits or sick pay or holidays)


$862.50/wk -- $44,850/yr. no job descriptions for this level.

$900.00/ wk -- $46,800/yr - clerk or labourer

$937.50/wk -- $48,750/yr - cashier

$975.00/wk -- $50,700/yr - water meter reader

$1012.50/wk - $52,650/yr - zamboni driver


$560.32/wk -- $29,137/yr - Nanaimo City Councilor

Don't expect a wage freeze policy from this council....

This council simply has no political will to address the issue of city hall wages. Why? For one reason no one wants the labour disruption the union threatens to bring if they can't negotiate a new contract to their liking. Several city councilors are heavily supported by labour unions, so their decisions should be no great mystery.

Exempt staff at city hall (non-union) can expect to give themselves a raise in keeping with what council settles on for union workers. So really there is no one who has any vested interest in trying to hold the line on staff wages and benefits.

These kind of employers (government sector) are the last bastion of organized labour in Canada and they pretty much can get what they demand, as the market pressures that force private business to hold the line, simply doesn't exist when bargaining with the city. After all, it is an easy matter to cover another million or so in wages, just increase taxes. Simple!

That might be more acceptable if we weren't already paying someone with no particular skill set $44,750 per year just for showing up and someone trained to read water meters is paid $50,700/yr. These kind of wage levels are only available in the public sector, how much longer they are sustainable is the $64,000 question no one on city council can tell you.

Bloated government wages have brought down governments...

Follows is a paragraph from a McLeans article, 'The $100,000 club: Who's really making big money these days', which makes it clear that bloated government payrolls are not limited to the city of Nanaimo.

In Canada, the good life no longer belongs only to those who graduated from competitive professional programs, or built their own businesses, or came into family money. It now belongs to those who take stable and well-protected government jobs. But, as in Europe, where bloated public sector payrolls have brought down governments, in Canada, too, these trends are coming home to roost.