School District 43 trustees got a small jump in pay this year, according to financial statements released Tuesday by the board of education.
But the board chair says the policy that adjusts trustee indemnity annually on Jan. 1 based on the average pay of Coquitlam, Port Moody and Port Coquitlam city councillors — but not of councillors for the villages of Anmore and Belcarra, which SD43 also represents — is a fair one.
“It’s really out of our hands. It just advances or doesn’t depending on what the cities are doing,” said Barb Hobson, a Coquitlam trustee.
Figures in the latest Statement of Financial Information show trustees earned about $700 more for the 2017-’18 school year — a 1.6% increase.
Base pay for trustees was $43,236 for the year ending June 30, a third of it a tax-free expense allowance. Typically, the chair is paid an additional indemnity of 10% and the vice-chair 5%, and as the position rotates with each year, pay packages for trustees can vary.
For example, Anmore/Belcarra Trustee Kerry Palmer Isaac, who chaired the board last year, earned $47,559.91.
Total remuneration paid to elected officials was $395,612.34, with $69,632.50 in expenses, but of that, $62,725 was for a trip to China for six trustees and was reimbursed by the Chinese government through its cultural and education arm Hanban.
Hobson defended the practice of sending trustees to China, arguing it helps to strengthen the district’s international education program, in which foreign students pay $15,000 annually in fees to go to school in SD43.
“I know they’re valuable for the district," she told The Tri-City News. "They bring us revenue and they increase the relationships that we have built on over the years.”
The next trip to China will be in March but Hobson didn’t know how many trustees would be going.
