During Lyn Hall's formal announcement Thursday that he will be seeking a second term as the mayor of Prince George, The Citizen asked him two questions.
First, will he review the city's overtime policy for senior management (officially known as the Exempt Employee Overtime Administrative Procedure) which pays the city's top bureaucrats double their normal hourly wage to respond to special emergencies like wildfire evacuees?
Second, will he approve a 15 per cent wage increase for the city manager as recommended in a consultant's report commissioned by the City of Prince George?
Just so everyone is clear, those are the two questions The Citizen will be asking of every mayoral and city council candidate between now and Oct. 20, when residents go to the ballot box.
There is no rolling back the substantial pay raises handed out to senior staff over the past four years that were far greater than the 1.5 and two per cent increases awarded to unionized city employees. There is no turning back the clock on the restructuring and expansion of the senior management team to justify those pay increases without inviting costly constructive dismissal lawsuits. There is no clawing back the $235 an hour overtime pay city manager Kathleen Soltis received for 70 hours of work when more than 10,000 wildfire evacuees descended upon the city last summer.
That being said, it's entirely reasonable for concerned local voters to ask Hall and the six incumbent city councillors seeking re-election how all this happened under their watch and what their plans are to rectify the situation should they earn another four years at the council table.
They certainly weren't very forthcoming in their guest editorial The Citizen published on Aug. 21.
Their letter - of which a significant portion was lifted from previous emails sent to The Citizen by director of external relations Rob van Adrichem and senior communications officer Michael Kellett - simply stated the obvious and missed the entire point of the series of editorials criticizing the wage increases and overtime for senior management.
The more than 500 city employees who worked more than 35,000 hours to accommodate the unprecedented crisis of taking in more than 10,000 wildfire evacuees last summer did an amazing job under difficult circumstances. No one doubts that.
No one questions the fairness of unionized city employees earning overtime pay under their collective agreements, which was paid for by the B.C. government, to do the essential work needed to accommodate those individuals who had fled their homes.
No one also questions the leadership shown by Soltis and her team during the crisis, as well as the many hours they put in, over and above their regular duties.
The written response from city council ignored the real questions, which have been asked before and will be asked again: how was the distinction between regular hours and OT hours made in terms of billing the province for the work of senior managers? Who oversaw that process and did city council oversee that process for the city manager, who billed out 113.5 hours (roughly three work weeks) in regular time towards the wildfire response, along with her 70 hours of overtime?
Same goes for the hefty wage hikes for the city's senior management team.
No one doubts the significant responsibilities these individuals have. No one questions their expertise or how deserving they are of a salary that reflects both their expertise and their responsibilities. The distinction between salary and remuneration (salary plus other sources of income, such as overtime, vacation payouts and other benefits) has been made repeatedly.
The written response from city council ignored the real questions, which have been asked before and will be asked again: what was the justification for the restructuring of the senior management team in 2015 with new titles, responsibilities and salary grids? Were mayor and council part of that process? If so, to what degree and if not, why not? Were all of the newly created positions posted externally or were they just filled? What data was used to justify the salary increases and why were they so much more than what unionized employees received? Why hire a consultant in 2017 to do a comparison of city manager and senior staff salaries in Prince George to other similar B.C. municipalities if there is no consistency on corporate structures between municipal governments and a comparison can't be made internally at the City of Prince George between 2017 and 2014, before the restructuring?
So there are only two questions going forward to ask all mayoral and city council candidates but there remain many more significant and relevant questions for the current mayor and city councillors to address.
It's now up to every voter that feels this issue deserves more attention to keep asking for answers.
-- Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
