An update to the Victoria Esquimalt Police Board’s manual has been delayed over a debate about whether elected officials should be paid for sitting on the board.
The board has directed its governance committee to reconsider a motion not allowing elected officials to receive a stipend for their service.
The stipend for board members is currently $8,000 annually for directors at large and $11,000 for the chair, vice chair and chairs of committees
The board had expected to pass alterations to the manual to reflect the fact that the board no longer has the mayors of Victoria and Esquimalt as its two co-chairs.
Language throughout the manual had been altered to reflect that the board would now have one chairperson, and that the mayors of the two municipalities would no longer be automatically appointed to the board.
Instead, councils will appoint a representative for a two-year stretch.
Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins said she has an issue with elected officials being treated differently from other board members.
Desjardins noted that she has not taken compensation for sitting on the board for 15 years — as mayor she feels she is already adequately compensated — but said she was thinking of the next Esquimalt representative.
She said without offering a stipend, Esquimalt may have trouble drawing quality volunteers.
While the mayor is fairly compensated, she said, councillors are not and most have other jobs, which could be affected by the amount of time it takes to commit to a position on the police board.
“I think the board should consider that all members coming to this board should be treated equally and there should be compensation offered across the board,” she said.
Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto, who has also not accepted the stipend for her seat on the police board, agreed, saying she sees no reason to differentiate between members of the board.
As part of the manual re-write, the governance committee was also pushing to allow both Desjardins and Alto to work on committees now that they are no longer co-chairs of the board.
