Finance chair clarifies school trustees' pay raise

Trustees in the Hanover School Division have decided to reduce their indemnity increase which goes against their policy. 

“Trustees determine their own indemnities, just like MLA's and city councillors,” explains Finance Chair Ron Falk. “So, to some extent it's always a bit of an awkward situation when that takes place, but it's something that needs to be talked about and dealt with.” 

Falk notes they typically wait until negotiations are settled for all employee groups within the school division before the board considers salary increases for senior administration and trustees, to keep increases in-line with what employee groups are getting. 

Years ago, the board passed a policy to guide indemnity increases for trustees in Hanover, he adds. 

“The board at the time decided we should simply create a policy that states will go according to the CPI (Consumer Price Index).” 

Falk says they decided to use CPI Winnipeg as it is traditionally lower than CPI Manitoba. 

“And for the most part it's been working out reasonably well in the last number of years. So, now we needed to talk about our own renumeration again for a year ago, for 2023. The thing is that their CPI was at 7.7% for Winnipeg and that was obviously too high for us to live with. I mean, not anybody is going to complain about that kind of salary increase in your job, but we are public servants and on top of that, we've had a number of employee groups that have already settled for 2023 and those settlements are coming in at 3.3%, not 7.7%. So, we just felt that we should not follow our policy and that we should in fact go to 3.3% for 2023.”  

Hanover school trustees also approved their indemnities for the current year. Falk says they decided to go with a reduced increase again because CPI Winnipeg is running at 3.9 percent, which is higher than the 3 percent that employee groups have settled for this year. 

So, the 2024 indemnity increase is also 3 percent for Hanover trustees. 

 The board has also approved a $50 increase in the daily indemnity, a rate that Falk says has not changed for over 10 years. 

This indemnity compensates trustees for attendance at special meetings or events which may require them to take time off work, Falk explains. 

He notes it does not cover trustee attendance at events like Christmas concerts. 

“That is just part of the expectation that trustees are there to support the community, the school community and that particular school.” 

The special indemnity rate is now at $150.