City of Lethbridge Salaries and More: Your Questions Answered

For the last several weeks, Lethbridge News Now has been inquiring about city administrative salaries, including those of managers, planners, clerks, supervisors and the City Manager. We asked why they aren’t published/disclosed publicly on the city’s website.

Some Alberta Cities like Calgary and Red Deer to some extent publish lists yearly, or at other intervals, which are available on each city’s website.

After an initial inquiry, LNN did receive a list. According to the city’s Communications Department, it explains the compensation group each administrative position falls within, and the salary range for that position.

Other employees fall within one of nine unions and have individual collective agreements. Those salaries and/or wages are located here:

https://www.lethbridge.ca/living-here/Career-Opportunities/Pages/Links.aspx

According to City Manager Bramwell Strain, while several other provinces require salaries of all public officials to be disclosed on a regular basis, that’s not the case in Alberta. There’s no real explanation as to why the City of Lethbridge hasn’t made those lists public in the past.

“The way that it’s worded in the Government of Alberta Legislation, it leaves the choice for municipalities to publicly disclose salaries up to them, and how they do that,” explained Strain. “Whether they do that by person, position or salary ranges. Again, I can’t speak for why other jurisdictions have done it, or quite frankly I can’t explain why we haven’t, other than it is a political decision. So, politicians make those decisions and they put motions forward and they’re either passed or defeated.”

Strain says that could change soon, as the city becomes more open and transparent.

“It’s going to take some time to get everything out there, but in that vein, of course we’d like to be open. That’s taxpayer’s money. They pay money to get certain goods and services. They pay salaries with that money. That money should be publicly disclosed.”

The Lethbridge list is divided into seven groups from A to G, with salaries that range from $60,859 to $234,507, per year, not including the City Manager. The salaries do not include benefits.

Bramwell Strain’s salary is listed in a separate category at $259,994 in 2019, comparable to Red Deer’s City Manager at $235,000. However according to a notice on the City of Red Deer’s website in May 2019, their City Manager earns less now, than in previous years “to reflect the challenging economic reality our (their) community is facing.”

The Director of Community Services, Director of Corporate Services, Director of Infrastructure Services and Director of the City Manager’s office all earn between $187,629 to $234,507 (Group G).

One of those four top positions is held by a woman, Jody Meli, the City Manager’s Office Director. It’s not clear if Hailey Pinksen, Director of Treasury and Financial Services, also falls into the top tier.

The following is a breakdown of the rest of the groupings:

13 managers including the Fire Chief, City Solicitor and Transit Manager earn $150,091-$187,629 (Group F)
33 managers including the City Clerk, Police Information Technology Manager, Deputy EMS and Fire Chiefs, Community Planner and others earn $120,081-$150,091 (Group E)
27 planners, consultants, managers and coordinators etc. earn $102,921-$128,641 (Group D)
51 engineers, sales managers clerks and specialists etc. earn $88,471-$110,565 (Group C)
28 coordinators, consultants and advisors etc. earn $77,317-$96,681 (Group B)
5 advisors, assistants and secretaries earn between $60,859-$76,050 (Group A)

Employment Equity

Strain says one of the first questions he asked when he took on his new role in the summer of 2018, was that of employment equity, including those employed by the City who are First Nations, visible minorities, persons with disabilities and women in non- traditional roles.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t actually get that information,” he explained, “Because we don’t currently track that information.”

However, he added that several months ago, a Diversity Inclusion Specialist was hired that will begin to focus on that subject.

“My philosophy is that we should be representative of the population we serve. So, as our different populations shift, we should be representative of that.”

Currently, that does not appear to be the case in senior management positions.

Strain says, of 54 top paid employees within the city, just nine – or about 17 percent – are women. There are no numbers available for First Nations, minorities or those with a disability.

Mayor and Council Salaries

In Jan. 2019, Revenue Canada eliminated the federal one-third tax exemption on elected officials’ renumeration (salary) across the country. It had been in place since 1947 and included school board officials and commissions.

Prior to that, according to information obtained from the City of Lethbridge’s webpage, in 2017/18, Mayor Chris Spearman earned a salary of $117,179, while councillors (who are listed as part-time) earned between $43,998 and $48,658.

To make up for the loss of that one-third salary tax exemption, Lethbridge’s mayor and council salaries increased.

Mayor Chris Spearman now earns $144,688, while councillors earn $59,277.

As of 2019, Red Deer’s mayor earned $131,940 (up from $112,198) per year, while councillors earned $68,618 (up from $60,466).

The mayor also has a $28,000 per year travel and per diem budget, while each councillor gets a $10,500 per year budget.

Strain says the city looks at all salary comparators.

“So, in any comparator system there’s always a low and a high. We like to be in the middle.”

LNN asked the City Manager for information on what portion of the City’s total budget consists of salaries. We were told that approximately $139 million goes to salaries/pay (about 34 per cent), not including benefits

According to a BILD Lethbridge Benchmarking study in 2018, the size of Lethbridge’s municipal government is larger than all other comparative cities, with 12.7 employees per 1,000, or about 1270 municipal employees as of 2015. (It’s not clear from the study if those numbers included employees with the Lethbridge Police Service, which numbers around 200).

Efficiencies at City Hall

When Strain was hired in July 2018, he brought with him experience at a provincial and federal level, including as a deputy minister in the Manitoba government and senior roles with Service Canada, Veterans Affairs Canada, and Human Resources Development Canada.

During Lethbridge City Operating Budget deliberations in Nov. 2018, council unanimously approved a resolution to instruct him to conduct an independent fiscal performance review of all City operations over the next three years.

That included a series of reviews to examine City programs, services, service-delivery models and service levels, taking into consideration the financial as well as the economic value to the community.

In mid- to late October, Strain says the first part of that review will be presented to Council. The second part will get underway in January 2020.

“One of the first things we asked that review to do, was to compare us to others. Not just within Alberta, but outside jurisdictions. So, like-sized cities doing like-sized things.”

That means comparing “apples to apples” says Strain. From there, the comparisons are broken down into units like parks to parks, HR to HR.

“We’re the 23rd place out of 24 municipalities in Alberta from a tax perspective. That’s not a good place to be. We don’t want to be high. We want to be low, or you want to ensure people are getting value for money. The other thing we want to be able to do is explain to people exactly what they get for their tax money.”

That means looking at whether the City is the best entity to provide some services, or whether some could, for example, be contracted out.

“There’s a size of a pie. You can’t just keep taking a bigger slice of the pie. Eventually the pie disappears. So, we have to do two-fold: we have to increase the size of the pie, economic development, we have to attract new business, new people here to move. And at the same time, we have to control our expenses.”

At the end of the day, Strain says it will be up to the Mayor and Council to make decisions on what, if any, possible action could result in the future.

“We’ll present options, and they’ll make decisions. But they’ll be making decisions this time based off information and metrics. So, they’ll know exactly what the impact is, where the money is. Do I anticipate savings? I do.”

Does that mean potential cuts in services or personnel?

“I wouldn’t rule out anything at this particular time. I would not say positively yes, or positively no,” added Strain.

“I’m a firm believer in open and transparent government,” he continued. “Open data. The more information that’s out there, the better off everybody is.”

by Lara Fominoff

City of Lethbridge Salaries and More: Your Questions Answered

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