A City of Peterborough staff report is proposing a 60 per cent raise for the mayor and a 52 per cent raise councillors for the next term of council.
At its general committee meeting on Tuesday (April 22), council will consider the report from Richard Freymond, the city’s commissioner or finance and corporate services.
The report recommends a “reset” of base compensation for council based on a comparison of 2023 pay rates for mayors and councillors in 14 other single, upper, and lower-tier municipalities across Ontario.
As the proposed pay increase would only take effect for the 2026-2030 term of council, starting in December 2026, compensation for Mayor Jeff Leal and the 10 current councillors would not be affected.
While the report also recommends an increase of over 17 per cent for the vehicle/transportation allowance, it doesn’t propose a increase in pension or health-related benefits or compensating councillors for sitting on any local boards or committees — something for which some councillors have advocated.
In 2025, the mayor will be paid an estimated $92,373 plus $23,341 in benefits. He is also compensated for sitting on certain local boards, including the City of Peterborough Holdings Inc. and the Police Services Board, and receives a vehicle/transportation allowance of around $5,112.
In 2025, each councillor will be paid an estimated $36,185 plus $10,728 in benefits, as well as a vehicle/transportation allowance that is half the mayor’s — $2,556 — should a councillor opt in to receive it. Councillors do not receive remuneration for sitting on any local boards or committees.
To determine the proposed pay increase for the mayor and councillors, city staff compared their 2023 base compensation with that of 14 other municipalities, including Hastings County, Waterloo, Barrie, Brantford, and Durham Region. Of the 14 municipalities, 13 pay their mayors more than Peterborough does and 12 pay their councillors more.
It should be noted that all 14 municipalities in the comparator group have populations that are larger than Peterborough’s (87,552), ranging from 108,689 in Chatham-Kent to 282,375 in Kitchener to 696,692 in Durham Region.
In comparison to the 14 other municipalities, city staff determined the compensation for Peterborough’s mayor has a percentile ranking of 7.1 per cent and councillor compensation has a percentile ranking of 14.2 per cent, not including any per diem rates that some municipalities pay councillors for sitting on boards and committees.
The report recommends increasing compensation for Peterborough’s mayors and councillors so it is equal to the 75th percentile of the comparator municipalities.
“The suggested percentile is balanced with council’s longstanding policy from 2002 to not remunerate councillors for participation on various boards and committees,” the report states.
Based on the 75th percentile, Peterborough’s mayor would have been paid $135,103 in 2023 and each councillor would have been paid $50,234 in 2023.
Adjusting those amounts using CUPE collective bargaining settlements as an inflationary indexing guide, city staff calculated that compensation for the mayor should be $147,631 in 2026, an increase of 59.8 per cent over what the mayor will be paid in 2025.
Using the same formula, city staff calculated that compensation for each councillor should be $54,991 in 2026, an increase of 52 per cent over what each councillor will be paid in 2025.
Assuming the pay increase happens in December 2026, the report also recommends that compensation for the mayor and councillors be increased each December for the remainder of council’s term, equal to the inflationary increase provided to CUPE staff bargaining groups.
The report is also recommending a 17.4 per cent increase for the vehicle/transportation allowance for both the mayor and councillors. Since the late 2000s, the mayor has received an allowance of $5,112.
Beginning with the 2022 term of council, councillors became eligible for an optional vehicle/transportation allowance that was half of that amount. City staff are proposing the amount for the mayor be increased to $6,000, with $3,000 for each councillor.
City staff are not proposing any changes to pension benefits. Prior to the 2022 council term, only the mayor received pension benefits. As of 2022, councillors became eligible to to receive matching funds to a registered pension fund up to nine per cent of their base salary.
Staff are also not recommending any changes to the existing policy of not compensating councillors for their committee or board work, or any changes to existing benefit entitlements for supplemental health, prescription drugs, dental, group life insurance, and the employee assistance program.
