Better council decisions is the goal

Last Monday, Brandon City Council unanimously passed a motion instructing city administrative staff to conduct a review aimed at determining if council members should receive higher salaries and/or if council positions should become full-time instead of the current part-time status.

As part of that review, the staff will compare the pay levels for the mayor and councillors here in Brandon to what their peers are receiving in similar-sized cities across Canada. The report must be completed by no later than mid-February.

Some may suspect the review is an indirect attempt by the current mayor and councillors to raise their pay, but the city’s indemnity bylaw requires that council review salaries and benefits prior to the end of the first quarter of the final year of each term. The review is happening within that period of time.

There have already been several spirited discussions online regarding the possibility that council’s governance and salary structures could change, but those discussions have not really focused on the critical aspects of the issue.

As a starting point, it is important to recognize that in Canadian government at all levels, it is the role of elected officials to set policy and provide direction, while it is the obligation of the bureaucracy — civil servants — to implement those policies and follow those directions.

At the local level, our councillors exercise oversight over all city activities but are not involved in the day-to-day operations of city departments. They don’t drive garbage trucks and buses, they don’t clear snow and they don’t arrest people.

Rather, city council sets city policy and departmental budgets. They tell the city manager what they want done, and it then becomes the bureaucrats’ job to ensure the task is completed. Weeks or months later, councillors review whether their expectations have been met.

There is a clear line between the politicians and bureaucrats, but governments often get into trouble when politicians (who often don’t possess the specialized skills and/or experience the civil servants have) involve themselves in tasks normally done by bureaucrats. That kind of meddling, even if well-intentioned, often ends up in a mess.

Having full-time councillors in Brandon could make such a problem more likely at city hall, if only because “full-timers” would inevitably feel the temptation — perhaps even feel an implied obligation — to be more involved in managing the city’s day-to-day activities.

With that likelihood in mind, note that the City of Winnipeg has had full-time councillors for decades. Has that improved the quality of council decisions in that city? Nope.

In my view, any decision regarding the composition of city council (full-time or part-time, and how many councillors there should be) and the salaries they are paid should be based upon which approach ensures the highest quality of decision-making at the council table. If that’s our goal — and it should be — we must first try to achieve that objective before incurring the added expense and risk of full-time councillors.

Too many times, we have seen council blindsided on issues on which they weren’t given all the information they needed, were given incorrect information or did not have enough time to consider the facts and consult stakeholders prior to making a decision.

Those problems can be avoided through a greater commitment by the mayor and city administration to transparency and ensuring that councillors aren’t treated as rubber-stampers. That can be accomplished by ensuring our part-time councillors always have all the complete and correct information they require, well in advance of a council meeting, in order to make fully informed decisions.

If the mayor and city manager can do that on a consistent basis, the argument for full-time councillors becomes less persuasive.

On the question of salaries, nobody goes into politics at any level to get rich, but we have to recognize that every person’s time is worth something and, secondly, the salaries paid should bear some relation to the responsibilities of the job.

Expecting councillors to shoulder their important duties for less than minimum wage (based on the hours many of them claim to put into the job each week, at the current pay level) is not just disrespectful. It’s also a great way to drive away the experienced, knowledgeable people we should want to run for mayor or council.

In many aspects of life, you get what you pay for. It’s possible — perhaps likely, even — that the quality of debate and decision-making at the council table would improve by improving the quality of the people responsible for making those decisions. That requires a level of compensation that is more consistent with their skills and responsibilities.

Having said all of that, several unanswered questions remain. What happens after city administration delivers their report in February? Will council simply table it and hand it to the next council for a decision, or will they implement some or all of the recommendations before the next election? Or will they let voters decide via a referendum? Should the discussion also include re-consideration of ward boundaries and whether councillors should be required to reside in the wards they represent?

We may have some answers in February, but one thing is already clear: the next election has yet another big issue for voters to consider and debate.