Octogenarian County coun. Murray Fearrey has raised the idea of increasing councillor salaries to attract municipal candidates in 2026.
During a Dec. 11 County of Haliburton budget discussion, Fearrey said, “it’s not my nature to advocate more spending, but I have asked the CAO to get some comparators for us. Our average age here is over 70 and we’re not attracting younger people because they can’t leave their jobs and come to work and do this job. And it is a job now. It’s not like it was.”
In the 2022 election, half of all candidates in Haliburton County were acclaimed; Mayor Bob Carter, deputy mayor Lisa Schell and coun Bob Sisson in Minden Hills; Fearrey, deputy mayor Walt McKechnie and councillors Barry Boice and Tammy Donaldson in Dysart et al; deputy mayor Jennifer Dailloux and Julia Shortreed in Algonquin Highlands; and deputy mayor Cec Ryall and councillors Cam McKenzie and Ruth Strong in Highlands East.
Coun. Liz Danielsen agreed with Fearrey, saying, “75 per cent of us are seniors, which is not representative of our constituents, despite us having been elected to the positions we have.” She said if council was to consider a pay increase, “we could do it over a period of a couple of years, so there’s less impact on the budget overall.”
Carter said he supported Fearrey, but unlike Danielsen, thought it would be difficult to phase in a pay increase. “Because one of the notions of why we would have an increase is to try to attract people to the job. And we almost need to have that determined up front at the time of the next election.”
He said potential candidates would need to be able to determine if it was financially possible to be a councillor. “As coun. Fearrey says, this is no longer a part-time job for the most part. And if we’re going to ask for people to dedicate all of their time to this and do it right, I think that they have to be compensated for it.”
Fearrey noted there was unspent money in reserves. He asked if there was a reason they could not take $80,000 from that to give each councillor a $10,000 raise. “I think if we bumped it once or twice, people would start to think ‘okay, maybe now I can work two days a week, or three days a week, and I can go to council.”
He said he finds the job today “takes a lot of time.” He said the budget documents he received from Dysart would take him a full day to go through.
He added he is not personally looking for a pay rise.
“I’ve been one of the worst down here to say it’s a community job. We shouldn’t get paid. Well, you know what? Things have changed. Over the last few years, it’s much more complicated. If we don’t get it (the pay) up so it’s attractive, and wait to the very last minute to do it, people won’t (run). People need to think about this if they want to change their life. They need to start thinking about it a year ahead if they are going to run.”
Less than a living wage
CAO Gary Dyke said there were a couple of ways to address the council pay issue.
He said staff could do a review, bring the information back to council, and council decide if it’s appropriate to raise pay and make it effective for the next council. That way, it wouldn’t look like the current council is giving itself a pay increase.
He said staff could then modify the election packages along with lower-tier governments, “where all that information is made available well in advance of the election, so if you’re considering running it would talk about remuneration, obligations, those types of things going forward.” As such, he said anybody considering running in 2026 would know how much they’d be making.
Danielsen said they’d have to encourage the lower-tier, since that is where most of the salary comes from.
“I don’t think a lot of people realize that members of council make less than a living wage,” she said.
As an example, Highlands East council has voted to increase council pay effective Jan. 1. The mayor will now be paid $32,500 a year, the deputy mayor $26,150 and councillors, $22,025. Eight councillors also get paid more for being on County council.
CAO/treasurer Brittany McCaw said there had not been an increase since 2018 and she was proposing “fair remuneration” after reviewing other salaries across Haliburton County, Hastings County, and Peterborough County.
The average salary in Ontario in 2024 is estimated to be $67,588.04 per year. However, the actual amount earned can vary widely by area.
Council asked Dyke to prepare a review of County council compensation levels for consideration at a Feb. 12 meeting.
