WEYBURN — Weyburn city councillors approved a review of the remuneration paid to council for the first time in a decade, with a new pay rate set for the next term of council starting in 2025.
For the review, a report compared Weyburn’s pay rates with the other cities in Saskatchewan, excluding Regina and Saskatoon, and found Weyburn’s remuneration for the mayor and councillors were in the middle of the pack.
In the end, council approved a recommendation to tie the salary for mayor and councillors to a percentage of the MLA base salary.
The current salary for mayor is $61,475, and for councillors is $21,828, which is above the level that would be set at the new rate, so they will be frozen at current levels and there will be no increases to the salaries until MLA salaries increase.
The percentage to be used is 52.5 per cent of an MLA’s salary for the mayor, and 36.67 per cent based on a percentage of the mayor’s salary.
The rate going forward will be tied to the consumer price index, as MLA salaries are tied to this rate with a maximum increase of three per cent. This will align Weyburn’s pay rates to that of Estevan and Martensville, the two cities whose population size is the closest to Weyburn’s.
New for Weyburn will be payment of per diems for full or half-day meetings or events, with no per diems to be paid for regular council meetings or any meetings that are under two hours in length.
“This is hard, and it’s a lot of work,” said Coun. Jeff Richards of the process to review salaries. “It’s good we’re holding tight here.”
He added it’s also good for the council to tie salaries to an indicator outside of themselves, like the consumer price index, so it takes the decision out of their hands.
“I’ll echo that. I remember in 2014, we struggled with how to get this process done,” said Coun. Mel Van Betuw, adding this is a good process for going forward.
Coun. Laura Morrissette noted she was also on council at the time, and agrees it was very difficult for them to make a decision on council salaries. The increase agreed to at the time seemed to be large, but she noted with the number of hours that council members spend in committee and in council, they are not in it to make money.
“We all want to be here to make the right decisions. We didn’t make that decision lightly,” she said.
• In other council business, council approved a bid for a consulting firm to formulate a plan to revitalize the downtown core of Weyburn.
They awarded the contract to Crosby Hanna & Associates for the price of $70,908, the lowest of four bids, to carry out a consultation with the public and the business community on how to revitalize the downtown area.
The Weyburn Chamber of Commerce and Weyburn Economic Development have each committed to pay for 25 per cent of the project cost.
The goals of the concept plan is to increase pedestrian traffic in the downtown, increase socialization opportunities, increase occupancy rates of commercial properties, enhance the esthetics of the downtown overall, and enhance the public spaces.
The defined boundaries for the core area is from Coteau Avenue to Railway Avenue, and between Second and Fourth Streets.
“It’s a great idea,” said Coun. Van Betuw, adding he encourages members of the public to come out and make their ideas and opinions known when consultation meetings are held.
Asked for the time line and what the city will receive at the end of the process, engineer Jennifer Wilkinson said the city is proposing the process be done by the end of this year, with consultation with the business community and the public to come up with a concept plan that sets out a multi-year staged plan to revitalize the area.
