Port Coquitlam council vote to give themselves 12.5% pay raise

They’re still the lowest paid council in the Tri-Cities but, following Tuesday’s vote, Port Coquitlam is set to make up some ground.

Council voted in favour of back-to-back 12.5 percent pay raises for 2024 and 2025.

While Coun. Dean Washington voiced some discomfort about voting on his pay and the pay of his colleagues, council ultimately voted unanimously for the raise.

“I’m not 100 percent in favour of this,” Washington said. “Just because Port Moody, for instance, has given themselves a large raise and they’re a third less the size of us, doesn’t mean that it’s right.”

Port Moody council recently supported a 15 percent pay raise. Retroactive to Jan. 1, 2023, the vote bumped Port Moody council’s pay from $45,851 to $54,720.

Port Coquitlam’s pay raise is relatively modest, Washington said, adding that he opposed city councils voting to raise their salaries, “when they’re passing along massive increases year over year, to their taxpayers.”

This year’s raise, effective Jan. 1, 2024, will add about $6,140 to Port Coquitlam council pay. In 2022, Port Coquitlam’s councillors earned $49,174. Following another raise next year, the city’s councillors are set to take home about $62,200 in 2025.

It’s difficult to acknowledge exactly what’s fair, acknowledged Mayor Brad West.

However, West noted that councillors in Port Moody and Coquitlam were, on average, set to earn 39 percent more in 2024 than their counterparts in Port Coquitlam.

In 2022, Coquitlam’s six re-elected councillors were paid $80,591.

“This is a gap that I believe is too big but, at the same time, it would be far too big of a jump to simply increase to the average of Coquitlam and Port Moody’s council compensation,” he said.

Being a councillor, “requires time, commitment, intelligence, consideration of all sides, and hard work,” West said. As part of that work, this council has acquired “millions of dollars in grants” from higher levels of governments, lessening the tax burden faced by Port Coquitlam residents, the mayor added.

“While this means that Port Coquitlam council will still be paid less than Port Moody and Coquitlam, it will make that gap smaller.”

Instead of voting on their own pay, it would be preferable if the provincial government established standardized remuneration for city councils, West said.

“The Union of B.C. Municipalities has passed that resolution, probably about half a dozen times,” West said. “In the absence of that, this is the way it’s done.”