When a new Advisory Committee on Council Remuneration is struck in 2026, its mandate will include reviewing the process used by the City of Prince George to review and set city council’s pay and benefits.
On Monday night city council received a report, outlining potential options to change how city council’s city council’s pay, benefits and eligible expenses – collectively call remuneration – are reviewed. Rather than adopt any of the proposed options, council voted to expand the mandate of the future committee to include a review of other potential options for setting council’s remuneration.
Coun. Kyle Sampson proposed moving the discussion of alternative options to the committee.
“I appreciate having that third-party feedback,” Sampson said.
Coun. Garth Frizzell said he was thinking the same thing, and said the committee may be able to come up with more options than presented by city administration in the report.
Currently, under the city’s Council Remuneration Bylaw, city council’s remuneration is reviewed by an Advisory Committee on Council Remuneration made up of community volunteers once every four years. The committee is mandated to compare the remuneration for Prince George’s council against those of 10 similar-sized B.C. municipalities - the cities of Chilliwack, Kelowna, Delta, Kamloops, Naniamo, Victoria, Coquitlam, Township of Langley and the districts of Saanich and North Vancouver – and make recommendations to city council.
“Remuneration is always such a tricky subject to have as an elected body,” Coun. Tim Bennett said. “I think Prince George is in this awkward size, where we are not as big as a lot of the communities on this list.”
The recommendations of the committee, if approved or amended by city council, are typically set to come into effect at the beginning of the year following a general election.
In addition, each year the bylaw provides for an annual adjustment for mayor and council that is equal to the lesser of the annual wage increase applied to City of Prince George management staff, or the average annual wage adjustment for the public administration sector published Human Resources and Skills Development Canada.
In a report to city council, city staff provided options to the current process including changing the list of peer municipalities, or removing the role of the advisory committee and setting city council’s remuneration to increase automatically using the current formula or equal to the annual increase in the Consumer Price Index for B.C, or the annual increase provided to B.C. members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) or members of parliament (MPs).
“I am in favour of reviewing the peer municipalities,” Coun. Ron Polillo said. “The City of Kelowna is nearly double our size.”
It might be worth looking outside of B.C. to compare Prince George to cities like Grande Prairie, Alta., which are a closer fit to Prince George in terms of size, he added.
Coun. Cori Ramsay, who previously sat on the advisory committee prior to running for city council, said she is concerned about a “domino effect” when one municipality on the list increases its remuneration, causing others to increase theirs.
Whatever options that council ends of up considering, Ramsay added, she hopes to see the advisory committee retained.
“I think that public participation is incredibly important,” she said.
