To the Editor,
Well taxpayers, now that you have paid your annual tax bill to the city, do you ever wonder if your money is being spent wisely and fairly?
Is it fair that 33 senior employees receive $221,000 in car allowances,which averages out to $560 per month for each employee, even though many of their vehicles seldom move during the work day from their subsidized parking spots.
And of course there is the six weeks annual paid vacation most of the senior bureaucrats receive, this to be added to 12 statutory holidays and the 18 so-called ‘sick days’, the sum of which works out to about 20 per cent of their annual compensation paid by the taxpayer with no services received in return.
City employees also receive other benefits which the taxpayer is responsible for, such as compensated absences, termination benefits, post-employment benefits ($604,000 in 2011) non-vested sick leave, legal fees and more.
And there is also the little matter of $492,000 in an expense called ‘debt forgiveness’. It would be nice to know the details on this, but the city doesn’t tell the taxpayers.
And we need not feel sorry that our mayor and council will be left out, as they have also joined the money parade by increasing their personal salaries more than 20 per cent from 2012 to 2014.
Wayne Schulstad
Nanaimo