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Librarian sucks from local residents pockets 100K+
While Milton Library sucks.

MMM – Milton Municipal Mafia

Our local Hospital receives jobs and beds cuts, mafia member in charge of it receives payroll increase.

From Andrew's data, salary increases from 2008 to 2009 for 6 senior Milton staff ranged from 5.7% for the Town Clerk to 16% for the CAO. The budget salary adjustment for non-unionized staff was 2.5%.

Over the 5 year period from 2004 to 2009, the CAO's salary increased 48% and the Director of Community Services increased 35%. From 2006 t0 2009, the budget salary adjustment for non-unionized staff ranged from 2.5 to 3%.

These senior staff salaries may be justified. Discussion of individual salaries may be confidential and conducted in-camera. But I have spent a couple hours on the town website and can find no minutes or staff report that describe a process for managing senior salaries or a review of salary ranges. That information should not be confidential.

I understand that staff compensation is about 50% of the operating budget. Taxpayers deserve some assurance that there is a process in place for Council to monitor staff salary increases, especially when they appear to be over budget.

I think we would all appreciate an explanation from Colin, or perhaps Jan, of the process Council uses to approve senior salaries and the justification for the large increases over the last 5 years. A little transparency please.

Congrats to the Town of Oakville for puting their staff salary ranges on line. Milton?
http://www.oakville.ca/hr/assets/ce-pje ... n-1002.pdf

On the other hand, it is kinda scary to see the extra management layer of Commissioners and the large number of Directors compared to Milton.

Heads-up candidates. We have a new town hall and there is a law of bureaucratic physics that says "Staff count will increase to fill the space allocated".

The Provincial budget recently imposed a two-year freeze on the salaries and benefits of all non-unionized employees in the Ontario public service. The government exempted municipal employees from the freeze, but Duncan told the media after the budget was released March 26 that municipalities are “certainly welcome to follow our lead.”

Thanks to Tim Foran's April 16 story "Will Halton freeze wages?" we can expect a response from the Region.
http://www.insidehalton.com/community/o ... cle/801717

Will Milton respond? Will we know? Will Tim have to prompt Council with a sequel called "Will Milton freeze wages?"

I would say no to both. With the HST about to make everything rise in price, I think it's rather unreasonable to expect wages to the stay the same. In my ideal world I would tie wage increases to the cost of living.

Hahahahaha - tell that to any private industry facing "headwinds" with the economy who have frozen their employee salaries for 1-2 years. They don't care about the HST (which is not going to significantly change the expense of most things anyways). Why should municipal wages not follow private industry and provincial example? I'd be kinda pissed if they didn't.

On the Milton Admin and Planning Committee agenda for May 10 there is a staff report recommending a 2% salary increase for non-union staff and councillors.
http://www.milton.ca/execserv/agendas20 ... stment.pdf

In light of the Province's suggestion to freeze for 2 years, it will be interesting to see whether our council will discuss the issue or simply pass the recommendation. Or maybe a token freeze for councillors?

The following are some observations from salary discussions at the Milton committee meeting of May 10:
- I suspect the recommended 2% salary increases would have been quietly passed without discussion if not for the concerns expressed in Mike Grimwood's delegation. Thanks Mike!
- There was no mention of the Province's suggestion for a municipal salary freeze.
- The denial of an increase for councillors was strictly for show. I doubt many will be impressed.
- There was a lot of reference to staff's great performance. As I understand it, the increase was a cost-of-living adjustment - nothing to do with performance. There was a separate performance budget, and who knows what the process was for the past large increases in senior staff salaries.
- I don't think anyone on council (and certainly not the public) understands the town's salary management process as it exists, let alone what it should be. And salaries make up about half the budget. Council should ask staff for a report detailing the town process for salary management. Then they can determine whether they need an outside consultant to confirm/upgrade that process.