Compensation for Local Government Politicians
Compensation for Local Government Politicians At time of writing, several Provincial MLA’s are retiring or are ‘being retired’ and the value of their pensions and severance pay is being reported. This tends to increase the comments to me when I’m out in the community such as ‘how’s the retirement going, are you enjoying your pension?’ I tend to lightheartedly reply that I’m not very good at retiring and maybe that this is because I don’t have a pension. This shocks almost everyone – they assume that my 28 years on Saanich Council - 18 of them as a fulltime Mayor - created a pension benefit. So let’s get this out of the way: the only municipal council in BC which is part of the Municipal Pension Plan is the City of Vancouver. Every local government has annual compensation for elected officials and many have some benefits such as extended health and dental. Some in Metro Vancouver have a contribution to a RRSP plan and a very few have a ‘transition pay’ upon leaving office. Put th