Saanich councillors are looking at giving themselves a 16 per cent pay hike while boosting residential property taxes 4.6 per cent.
Both items are to be discussed by councillors at a Tuesday night financial planning meeting.
Saanich Mayor Frank Leonard, acknowledging the optics of the raise aren't good, is recommending the increase be spread over two years.
"Twenty thousand dollars out of a $124-million budget isn't substantive but it becomes a symbolic issue," Leonard said.
Saanich council salaries are set annually, based on average council pay in similar-sized municipalities -- those with populations between 80,000 and 140,000.
Under that formula, each Saanich councillor's salary would rise $4,376 to $31,511.
Leonard would see his salary increased 7.1 per cent to $83,767 from $78,192.
Given current economic conditions, Leonard is recommending phasing in the increase: one-third retroactive to Jan. 1, 2009, and another one-third each
July 1 and Dec. 31.
The resulting impact would be a 6.87 per cent increase in salary costs from 2008 for a total of $20,291.
"Two hundred dollars a month for each of us isn't substantive," Leonard said. "It's not the reason anybody ran -- to get a $200-a-month raise, $100 now and $100 in July.
"But when you report the percentage, that's what has a symbolic meaning to folks."
Normally, Saanich council doesn't vary from the average, Leonard said.
"We normally just go with the survey and don't tinker," he said.
"What's extraordinary this time is a lot of our peers did an increase at the end of the last year of the term of office to apply to the next three years."
Even with the increase, he said, Saanich councillors will earn less than their counterparts in Victoria, at $31,000 versus $34,000.
Meanwhile, council and staff have pared down a potential seven per cent property-tax hike to 4.6 per cent.
If adopted, the proposed budget would translate into a $77 boost on the average home assessed at $538,000, bringing the taxes to $1,749 from $1,672.
The bulk of the increase -- 2.9 per cent -- is needed to fund core operations and offset losses in permit and interest revenues.
But there will be pain. While no full-time-equivalent staff will lose their jobs, some casuals and part-timers will not be getting the types of hours they've had in the past, Leonard said.
"At one point, we were going to be cutting parks quite badly to the point that garbage pickup in the parks was going to be affected. We've been able to restore that, but the floral displays will be affected -- all won't be as good as in former years. Some won't have any and that's not about flowers -- that's about calling someone in," he said.
The city is also bringing in annual recreation-fee increases three months earlier than normal to raise additional revenue.
The municipality is increasing some capital spending, putting an additional $500,000 into sidewalk construction and about the same into drain replacement.
It's also establishing a $15-million capital-contingency budget -- to be funded through long-term borrowing if federal-provincial infrastructure funding becomes available.
