One reason property taxes are going up in Brandon – double pay increases.

What am I talking about?

Well, when you hear in the news that government workers are receiving, say, a 2% increase, it’s rarely just a 2% increase.

To illustrate the situation, imagine a clerk position for someone with one year of experience at city hall pays $50,000, a clerk position for someone with two years experience pays $52,000 and a position for someone with three years experience pays $54,000.

When you hear the city union gets a 2% increase, that typically means each of those classifications sees a 2% increase on average.

Thus, next year a clerk starting out will make $51,000 ($50,000 + 2%), a second year clerk will make $53,040 ($52,000 + 2%) and a third year clerk will make $55,080 ($54,000 + 2%.)

Now here is where the step comes in. The clerk making $50,000 this year will “graduate” to a clerk position with two years experience next year. Thus, they’ll go from $50,000 to $53,040. That’s a 6.08% increase, not the advertised 2% increase.

I made up the numbers in the example above to show how the system works.

But, if you track down the City of Brandon’s labour contracts, you’ll find the “steps” in each agreement. You'll also note the number of steps vary by union and position, but their presence is quite common in government union agreements. 

In fact, if you look at the City of Brandon’s slideshare document on Salaries and Wages, you’ll see back in January they estimated a $1 million increase in collective agreement salary increases (the cost for the percent increase), plus another $530,000 in step increases. Yes, all these step increases aren't cheap!

As you can see, the “step” system pay model is completely independent of performance. You could be an unproductive third year clerk doing next to nothing, but would still make more than the young go getter just starting out, but is running productivity circles around you.

Union bosses like this model as they’re all about “seniority,” but this system often rubs employees the wrong way. Just ask those that are newer and busting their butts, but getting paid less than employees who have been there longer and less productive.

The fact that everyone eligible for a step increase tends to get one (in addition to negotiated percentage raises) means it’s a costly model for taxpayers. After all, many taxpayers work in environments where their pay is based on performance rather than based on the number of years they've been with the company.

To figure out just how routine step increases are at the City of Brandon, I filed a freedom of information request to find out how many staff received step increases last year.

And low and behold, of the 138 staff that were eligible, all 138 staff received step increases in 2011.

What politicians need to do is communicate this problem to the public and investigate ways of finding more reasonable systems; ones that reward the best and brightest that work for the government. It's also something a new taxpayers watchdog group in Brandon could investigate further.

No one seems to have a problem with paying the best firefighters, policemen and bureaucrats a good salary for delivering good results. But why on earth should those in government that aren’t performing so well receive the same pay?

Does anyone really believe 100% of the 138 employees eligible for pay increases truly deserve them?

Unfortunately for those in Brandon that say “no,” you still had to pay for it. 

To see the City of Brandon’s Freedom of Information response – click here.
To see how step increases work at the Brandon School Division - click here.