Vernon City Council at the regular meeting Monday, December 15 (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

By Liam Verster

Pay

Vernon’s mayor and council pay going up as originally planned

Dec 15, 2025 | 5:23 PM

The local municipal leaders are getting the pay raise originally set for the coming year, after justifying the increase as fair and a way of attracting people to do the job.

At the regular meeting Monday, Vernon City Council was presented with a possibility of increasing their remuneration at the same rate of 2025 for the coming year, instead of matching it to the Consumer Price Index.

The proposition was brought forward by Councillor Kari Gares, after residents raised concerns over the mayor’s and council pay going up.

However, Council did not go ahead with the request which would have kept the next pay rise relatively low.

Councillor Brian Quiring stated the rate, which is based on a four-year rolling average, was set out by an independent committee, and that it was a fair rate for the amount of work they do. He also argued that not raising the rate could dissuade people from running in the next election, especially people with lower incomes who would need to take time off work in order to fulfill the needs of the mayor or councillor positions.

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Councillor Brian Guy also said he believed it was fair to keep the rate tied to inflation. He also noted that maintaining the increase at the previous year’s rate would only translate to a 0.02 per cent tax rate reduction in 2026, and that would likely be offset by an even larger increase to make up the difference the following year.

Councillor Gares also agreed that the policy is fair, but said she brought it forward for consideration at the public’s request.

The motion to keep the remuneration increase at the 2025 level for 2026 was defeated in a vote at Monday’s meeting, with only Councillor Akbal Mund voting in favour of the proposal.

Following Monday’s meeting, Mayor Victor Cumming said this rate structure had been in place since 2016.

“Some years council got [no pay increase], because that’s the way the CPI works,” Cumming told Vernon Matters.

“It also is a weighted average over time, so it’s not each year that it changes radically. It’s a good way to turn it back to others outside of the day-to-day political system and set a policy for the four years.”

The mayor also said he understood the public’s concerns about their pay going up.

“We’re all concerned about that, but what was stated here by council, which was really important, is that we need to make this something that is at least attractive to get high-quality people to commit this kind of time for this type of work,” Cumming stated.

“The renumeration, especially on the council level, doesn’t match the effort. So it really becomes a problem if we erode the pay and [the positions] just slides to those who are the end of their career, so it kind of sets an age thing, or those who have other means, so they don’t have to use this to cover their costs. That creates a kind of subset within the community of those who could possibly be on council.”