Calgary city councillors, mayor get 3.8% pay raise
Naheed Nenshi donates 10% of his salary to a charitable trust
Members of Calgary city council are getting a pay raise of 3.8 per cent this year.
The raises are automatic and are tied to the average wage increase for Alberta workers as reported by Statistics Canada in the last year.
Council members cannot refuse the raise but in the past, some have donated it to charity.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi gets a salary increase of about $8,000 — bringing his annual pay to $216,401.
Nenshi says he donates 10 per cent of his salary to the Nenshi Family Charitable Trust, which is administered by the Calgary Foundation.
“I used to turn back the increases and a few years ago, I went to a point where I just donate a set percentage of my salary to charity above and beyond my normal charitable donations in a year — gets me audited every single year by Canada Revenue by the way,” he said.
“And so I continue to do that in 2013 and my plan is to do that in 2014 barring anything crazy going on.”
As of Jan. 1 members of city council now make $115,297 per year.