Calgary council gets pay raise for 4th straight year
Scott Dippel | CBC News | Posted: January 6, 2025 11:18 PM | Last Updated: January 6
Raise due to formula established by citizen committee, tied to average weekly earnings
It's another year, another pay raise for city council.
Calgary council members received a 3.07 per cent bump, effective Jan. 1.
That brings the mayor's annual salary to $220,298 while councillors will take home $124,462 this year.
The formula for council compensation was set by a citizen committee and approved by the last city council prior to the 2021 municipal election.
Each year, the pay for the politicians is adjusted up or down based on a Statistics Canada report on the change in the average weekly earnings in Alberta.
For 2024, the report concluded there had been a 3.07 per cent increase in Alberta's average weekly earnings. So the adjustments to council's pay are made as of Jan. 1.
Number skewed
Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra said he doesn't support politicians getting involved in setting their pay, which is why the formula is set by an independent citizen committee.
"I'm very happy to take a three per cent increase as opposed to a minus, which is something that I have taken in my time on council," said Carra.
"I'm certainly not going to eschew that as a person who has to feed my family."
That said, Carra said larger than average pay increases for top wage earners like chief executive officers are skewing the numbers for everyone.
"If you take them out of there, we'd be getting paid a lot less," said Carra, who represents Ward 9.
"The fiction that city councillors are getting paid the dead average of what Albertans are making is true somewhat but it's only true because there are — not because the lower echelons are so high. It's because the upper echelons are so high."
Another veteran city councillor, Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot, said he's aware that many Calgarians are struggling to make ends meet.
He suggested that if a council member wanted to bring forward a motion to freeze their pay for 2025, he'd support it.
"Even though I've said in the past we need to establish a reasonable salary for members of council to attract good talent, I think year-over-year increases should still be considered by council depending on the economic times," said Chabot.
Potential freeze?
From his vantage point, he said, the pay formula for adjustments is reasonable but he doubts most Calgarians would have a problem with council deciding to freeze salary levels.
Chabot said he's not aware of any of his colleagues planning to bring forward a pay freeze motion for the next council meeting later this month.
At the start of the current term of council, data from the City of Calgary shows the mayor was being paid $200,586. Councillors were paid $113,325 in 2021.
However, at that point, the salaries for the jobs had been frozen since 2018 due to several votes by the previous council to not adjust their pay.
Calgarians will select the next city council during the municipal election in October 2025.