It’s refreshing to hear that our elected officials are placing a high priority on accountability, and that in some cases they’re not just talking about it but they’re actually enacting policies that will help make it a reality.
While a lot of the public attention on politician accountability has been focused in Ontario of late, this week we see some of our own elected officials taking a great step forward in making themselves more accountable.
On Nov. 12, Westlock County councillors passed a motion to post their salaries and expenses monthly to the county website — a move that will undoubtedly help make them more accountable.
It’s not that those figures have been secret before now — they are reported yearly in the audited financial statement, a document municipalities are legally required to present annually.
It’s fair to say, however, that most residents weren’t going out of their way to grab a copy of this document and peruse the back pages to discover councillors expensed around $15,000 each in 2012.
Yet it’s disappointing that councillors voted against instituting a $9,000 cap on those expenses — a move that would have required councillors to be extra careful with their money. And in this case, their money really means county residents’ money.
Councillors already take home salaries of around $24,000 annually, the equivalent of a full-time worker making about $12/hour. Keep in mind being a councillor in a small community is for the most part a part-time gig.
Add to that the expenses, which include some big-ticket items like conferences, but also include an average of around $533 per councillor per month for vehicle mileage. Councillors are even paid that mileage — at the rate of 50.5 cents per kilometre set by the provincial government — to drive to work.
There are very few jobs in the area where your employer will pay you mileage for your morning and afternoon commute.
Perhaps a $9,000 cap wasn’t the right amount to set as a maximum, given the county’s current expense policy. But if that’s the case, it might be time to take a look at the expense policy itself to put an end to some of these entitlements.
