A one vote margin is all that stopped Moncton City Council from getting a pay raise.
Six Councillors voted no to the motion at Council last night, including both Dawn Arnold and Brian Hicks.
Mayor George LeBlanc spoke against the motion, despite saying councillors were underpaid and deserved a raise.
“Having said that, a raise of this significance, after a period of time in which we have done all we can to moderate wage demands in the City of Moncton, and coming after a time when we’ve frozen wages for senior staff is very bad timing,” says LeBlanc.
Councillor Daniel Bourgeois also spoke against the increase.
He explains one third of their salary goes towards administrative expenses like paying for cable, furnishing an office, and traveling to meet constituents.
“Cable hasn’t increased that much in price, electricity hasn’t gone up that much, travel within the city hasn’t gone up that much, all of these things hasn’t increased,” says Bourgeois. “So it doesn’t make sense to me that we would increase that benefit.”
Six Councillors voted against the motion, including Brian Hicks, Daniel Bourgeois, Dawn Arnold, Paul Pellerin, Shawn Crossman, and George LeBlanc.
Councillors who voted in favour are Blair Lawrence, Paulette Theriault, Rene Pepsi-Landry, Charles Leger, and Pierre Boudreau.
