SANDRA M STANWAY
Brooks Bulletin
The city’s elected politicians will likely get a pay increase of $5,000 for councillors and $10,000 for the mayor starting Nov. 1, 2025 and a 2.5 per cent increase each year until 2028.
The increase will mean that the mayor will receive a base pay of $72,000 and councillors will receive $30,000.
In 2023 the mayor’s base pay was $62,000. With benefits and allowances it increased to $65,949.
The Citizen’s Committee, which meets every four years, recommended increasing the salaries to be closer to the average of comparable municipalities and changed the meal allowance to align with Canada Revenue Agency as well as an annual membership to JBS Canada Centre.
The next council can accept or modify the recommendation.
This year’s committee was made up of Dan Klein, as a former councillor and Cindy Freimark and Lisa Patton who represented professional workers and CAO Chris Parker.
Parker said the decision was made after the committee reviewed the city’s policies and actuals. When Brooks was compared to municipalities with populations between 14,000 and 19,000 including Strathmore, Stoney Plain, Sylvan Lake, Cold Lake and Camrose, Brooks was at the low end.
“We’re still lower but we’re definitely not the highest,” he said.
Remuneration committees are formed prior to a municipal election to determine if elected officials should receive an increase, decrease or keep salaries status quo.
The previous committee met in 2021 in the run-up to the municipal election and the proposed increase became an election issue.
Mayor John Petrie said he wanted to avoid that situation and wanted a decision made before Jan. 1, the date that candidates can officially declare their intention to run.
“We were voting on it during the campaign and I wanted to make sure it was done a year ahead of time,” he said.
Council also considered whether or not the increase should be in line with union member increases rather than a set percentage.
“If it’s already established the union is going to be looking at that,” said councillor Bill Prentice.
The issue may be returned to council for their budget discussion with additional information.
