B.C.’s mayors and councillors have returned to their communities after the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities buntoss in Whistler last week, and they’re still steaming over the Province’s Ernst and Young report into municipal pay. That report found municipal pay in B.C. had jumped 38% since 2001 – compared to a 23% inflation rate and 19% increases for core provincial government employees.

In the Maple Ridge News today, Mayor Ernie Daykin claims, “the study is faulty because it used numbers without checking with municipalities. The municipal salaries included wages earned by B.C. Ferries employees and TransLink. ‘That’s one of the flaws in the study.’”

I would agree B.C. Ferries should be removed from that study (although one agency would not skew the results from 170 cities and 27 regional districts all that much). TransLink, however, is a municipal authority. Of course it should be included.

Amusingly, despite Daykin’s bluster, Maple Ridge finance general manager didn’t really quibble all that much with the numbers:

Maple Ridge finance general manager Paul Gill said it’s not a case of a workers receiving across-the-board wage hikes of 38 per cent.

Instead, that increase is a result of the effect of compounding pay increases, as well as the effect of new employees getting regular increases as they move through the pay grid. “If somebody said our wage bill went up 38 per cent over 11 years, I would not be surprised,” Gill said.

The bottom line: the province has managed its labour costs far more successfully than cities. And mayors like Daykin should be looking to build on that success – not trying to spin their way out of it.