Secret CAO salary review cost $20,000

Council shares additional details on recent salary increase.

At last week’s meeting, council awarded a contract to review non-unionized staff and councillor compensation packages.

The compensation review will cost $25,200. Staff informed council that this would be a review of approximately 30 to 35 non-union positions at the municipality as well as the 9 members of council. The non-union positions being reviewed would be directors, supervisors, coordinators, and economic development officers. It however would not include reviewing the compensation package of the town CAO.

During deliberations Mayor Kathleen Thorne-Rochon appears to have deliberately shared additional details regarding the secret drastic CAO raise that was awarded over the last couple of years.

As I reported earlier this year, West Nipissing’s CAO has seen unprecedented raises. His salary has gone up 25% in just two years (from $175,000 in 2021 to $219,000 in 2023). The CAO’s salary is significantly higher than the average of neighbouring, similar-sized municipalities. And in 2023, the CAO even topped the head of North Bay (with a population and budget several times higher than West Nipissing’s).

Not much details have been publicly shared on these increases, but Mayor Thorne-Rochon disclosed in April that the jump in salary was in part because of legal obligations that council had with respect to a settlement reached between the prior council and it’s CAO. This settlement stemmed from legal complaints filed by the CAO against his employer.

Prior to ending their term, the 2018-2022 council came to a settlement with the CAO to avoid a lawsuit. This settlement allegedly included a generous payout as well as the obligation that the municipality pay for a formal compensation review. The dispute between the prior council and the CAO was kept in closed meetings as it was considered a legal matter.

However, when the compensation review was done and presented to council last year, this was also kept in closed meetings. Councillors had multiple closed session meetings to review the consultant’s findings. Council then used the unrecorded council meeting in North Monetville last June to formally approve the CAO’s new salary.

According to the Ontario’s Ombudsman “open meetings are essential to robust democratic legitimacy”. They state that municipal councils should not use closed sessions unless absolutely necessary. The findings of a taxpayer-funded consultant report analysing compensations does not appear to qualify as a “closed meeting” issue.

Although two councillors objected to this review and wanted council to at least defer the motion, council still passed it 7-2.

The public was never informed that the CAO was awarded a taxpayer funded settlement or even a formal raise. The public was never informed that the municipality paid for a consultant to review the CAOs salary, what the cost was and what the findings were.

But last week, Thorne-Rochon requested that the town’s Director of Corporate Services divulge these details. She asked Craddock how much it had cost taxpayers to hire a consultant to conduct the secret CAO salary review.

Craddock informed council that the 2023 salary review cost $20,000. It appears Thorne-Rochon was trying to justify the $25,000 that will be spent reviewing her salary along with 8 other councillors and 30 staff. Her point was well received.

Taxpayers will pay $640 per salary review ($25,000 divided by 39 positions being evaluated) while they paid $20,000 in 2023 for a single position review.

I emailed the CAO as well as all of council asking that the public be shared this compensation review. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, I have not received a response.

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