City of Surrey employees who make $75,000 or more received a total north of $215 million in base salaries in 2022, with more than $23 million in benefits and $1.3 million in expenses on top of that.
Surrey’s general manager of finance Kam Grewal noted in corporate report that came before council recently that the Financial Information Act requires all cities to provide the provincial government with an annual Statement of Financial Information to include the name and remuneration paid to every employee who received more than $75,000 from the city.
Of the city’s 1,343 employees listed in this report, 620 pulled in six-figures in bases salaries and of those, 17 made more than $200,000 in base salaries.
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Top of the heap is city manager Vince Lalonde, with a 2022 base salary of $411,198.03. His taxable benefits and “other” – this includes any payout related to vacations, gratuity, performance pay, lump-sum payments, banked overtime, retirement “and/or vehicle allowances – was tallied at $54,411.23, with another $11,652.26 in expenses.
The report by Grewal – who himself pulled in a salary of $271,449.69 – indicates that for the year ending Dec. 31, 2022, these City of Surrey employees were together paid $215,267,904.29 for that year, with $23,759,588.65 in taxable benefits and “other,” and $1,309,239.75 chalked up in expenses.
Perennial council watcher Richard Landale, a Fleetwood resident, says the city’s payroll is “ever burdening” to taxpayers, who this year alone were hit with city property tax bills at least 12.5 per cent higher than in 2022. The city manager alone, Landale noted, is the highest-paid civic bureaucrat in B.C.
Landale in an email to council recommended it initiate a freeze on salary increases in 2023-2025 for employees with a taxable income more than $200,000 in 2023, “unless tied to a promotion and new job description.”
“There are some 200,000 residences paying property taxes or put another way $779.92 per city hall employee,” Landale noted. “This figure excludes the unionized and part-time employees of the city.”
Meantime, the Surrey Board of Trade is decrying thumping property taxes for Surrey as survey results comparing changes from 2022 to 2023 reveal a 16.9 per cent increase for industrial properties, 27.3 per cent for other businesses and a 21.1 per cent for residential.
Asked if she thinks the City of Surrey’s payroll is bloated, the board’s CEO Anita Huberman replied that “it’s not something I can comment on in terms of the salaries. The city needs to focus on revenue generation, but at the same time they also need to bring in more staff and bring in skilled staff at competitive salaries and I know these are not easy decisions when you see someone making $75,000-plus and it’s property tax dollars, or tax dollars that are being utilized to pay these salaries.
“These are difficult decisions that council and senior management need to make, but we’re a growing city, we need more staff, we need skilled staff, we need competitive salaries,” Huberman told the Now-Leader, “and putting in a freeze on salary increases I don’t think is the right approach. We need to focus on revenue generation for the city of Surrey.”