Steinbach city councillor Michael Zwaagstra is proposing that members of city council who miss too many meetings have their pay reduced accordingly.
Under Zwaagstra’s proposal, council members would be allowed to miss two regular meetings each calendar year before facing a salary deduction of $200 per missed meeting. Absences due to illness or representing council in an official capacity at another event would not count towards this total.
“As members of council, there is an expectation that we attend and participate in council meetings. Just like any other job, there should be consequences for excessive absences,” said Zwaagstra.
The regular meetings of Steinbach city council take place on the first and third Tuesdays of every month which makes for a total of 24 council meetings each year. On top of that, council members attend committee of the whole meetings once or twice a month along with other meetings as they occur. Only regular council meetings are included within Zwaagstra’s proposal at this point.
Other municipalities already have similar provisions in place. In the Town of Ste. Anne, members of council face a $100 deduction for missing a regular council meeting while City of Brandon deducts $300 from the mayor’s salary and $100 from councillors’ salaries for missed meetings.
Zwaagstra added that everyone who runs for city council knows about the meeting schedule ahead of time and should be able to organize their schedules around the council timetable.
“The intent of my proposal is to make it clear that regular attendance is expected of all council members. The public elects us to do a job and we can only do that job effectively if we are at the meetings where decisions are made,” said Zwaagstra.
In his first four years on council, Zwaagstra has not missed a council meeting yet.
For more information contact Michael Zwaagstra at 371-5125 (cell) or mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.
