School District 43 trustees will get a pay hike this year that will see them earn more than:
• Vancouver school trustees;
• Surrey school trustees;
• Port Coquitlam city councillors;
• and Port Moody city councillors.
According to information provided by SD43 this week, trustees will each get a 5% — or $2,000 — pay hike this year, with the chair and vice-chair getting slightly more.
The raise makes the nine Tri-City trustees the highest paid in the province, earning more than their counterparts who are responsible for many more students and much larger budgets.
The pay will be backdated to Jan. 1 and is based on a SD43 policy that sets the stipends based on an average of salaries paid to councillors in Coquitlam, PoCo and PoMo. The wages are adjusted each year depending on the rate of increase among councillors' salaries and the calculation is done by district staff and not discussed at a board meeting.
That means SD43 trustees — who are responsible for some 30,000 students — will be paid $42,364.71 this year, with chair Judy Shirra receiving $46,601.18 and vice-chair Michael Thomas receiving $44,482.95.
By comparison, Surrey school trustees, who oversee more than 70,000 students, are paid $32,000 and the chair is paid $36,800.
And in Vancouver school district, which has 54,000 students, trustees receive $26,022 while the chair is paid $28,190.
Only Coquitlam councillors make more than SD43 trustees. Remuneration for Coquitlam councillors is $57,549 (the mayor makes $132,228), compared to $39,000 for PoCo councillors (mayor: $99,470), and Moody councillors make $33,760 (mayor: $86,958).
Board chair Shirra, who's a PoCo trustee, defends the policy as a fair one based on the workload. She also said that because trustees' pay is adjusted automatically, politics and conflict of interest are taken out of the decision-making process.
"It's fair and it's realistic if we want to continue to get good people in," she said.
Questions have been raised over the years as to why trustees compare their jobs to to those of city councillors — most of whom sit on multiple city committees and all of whom are responsible for reviewing complex and lengthy planning documents — rather than those of trustees in other school districts.
But Shirra said SD43 trustees deserve their pay and the policy was written many years ago to reflect the workload, which includes overseeing a $260-million budget.
"We believe in the philosophy, we do work hard, and it's more than a part-time job right now."
If there is a change, Shirra said, she would like to see one that adjusts pay depending on the hours people put into the job so people who do less would get a smaller salary.
