Nelson City Council has asked staff to review the Council Indemnity Policy.
In the spring this year a review committee was struck and made several recommendations on new salaries and benefits for council. The sitting council at the time chose not to adopt the salary recommendations and gave larger increases than were proposed. New councillor Brittny Anderson introduced a motion for the review as she feels there are some “antiquated” features in the Bylaw.
“That committee, apparently it’s quite a challenging committee to be on and then those recommendations aren’t even necessarily taken by council, so I think there’s just potentially other ways of doing things.”
Mayor John Dooley echoed those sentiments and explains a possible alternative that staff will be looking into.
“They’re looking at doing one that’s been used in many other municipalities where the staff does the research for council. It’s quicker, it’s easier, for the most part, they have more access to more information.”
Mayor Dooley says he felt the committee brought forward fair suggestions earlier this year regarding new salaries for council, but says the last council jumped the gun when increasing those suggestions by $5,000 and $10,000. However, he says it’s more of an issue with streamlining the process.
Council’s current salaries wouldn’t be impacted at all and the new indemnity review process would be implemented for the next council. Staff have a year to complete the review.