Joshua StorieStudents’ Council voted to increase executive salaries on Tuesday night.
The guiding principles of the 2017-18 Students’ Union budget were approved, including a raise to executives’ pay to compensate for high workloads and living costs. Elected executives currently gross $35,400 per year, and Council Administration Committee has recommended a raise to $39,500 per year. The final budget is to be approved by Students’ Council on April 11.
Funding for the raises will come from surpluses in the Students’ Union operating budget. According to Vice-President (Operations and Finances) Robyn Paches, the surplus comes from revenues within the organization that are “stable and growing.” The raises will not cause any cuts to services or businesses.
Council voted with 16 in favour, two opposed, and three abstentions. Of Council’s 37 voting members, 21 cast votes. Few councillors consulted with constituents on the budget’s changes.
- More about cost distributions and comparisons to other institutions: Students’ Council looking into wage hike for execs
Consultation, or lack thereof
Native Studies councillor Nathan Sunday said he consulted with the Native Studies Students’ Association and students at large. He found the majority of them were against any increase.
“The Native Studies students that I talked to did not believe they were getting their money’s worth from the executives’ work,” he said. “The Students’ Union is a colonial institution so they don’t want to give more money to it.”
Open Studies councillor Levi Flaman said the few students he consulted with had no opinion or were against the increase. Medicine and Dentistry councillor Brandon Christiansen and Arts councillor Frederique Ndatirwa both said many of their constituents didn’t know that executives are paid, and those who did were in favour of no increase or a small increase.
“We need to take into consideration what our constituents are saying,” Ndatirwa said. “We are representing them. We’re not representing the executives.”
Arts councillor Ben Angus said the students he talked to were in favour of the raise. Arts councillors Kyle Monda and Reed Larsen said they did not consult as they were running in Students’ Union elections in weeks prior.
In response to a question from council guest Bashir Mohamed regarding the lack of student consultation on the wage increases, Students’ Union President Fahim Rahman said consultation will need to be done by councillors before the start of the Students’ Union’s next fiscal year.
“I trust Students’ Council to be conducting consultation with their constituents, as (budget principles) would be a decision of Council and not of the executives,” he said. “Consultation is a responsibility of council as a whole and not solely of the executives. “
Possible solutions to high executive workloads
Mohamed also asked about whether the overtime worked by executives was tracked on timesheets, and whether the work was a result of time mismanagement. Vice-President (Student Life) Francesca Ghossein said hours weren’t officially tracked, and gave an example of a 15-hour workday in her calendar.
“If there seems to be the perception that executives are mismanaging time I think Council should seriously consider maybe adding a VP position or reviewing the job descriptions,” she said.
Science councillor Umer Farooq said he would vote on the issue based on his opinion as someone who has worked with executives, and not on student consultation.
“I have seen all the work executives do and the amount of time that it takes,” he said. “We can’t say that any consultation councillors do is really representative of what actual opinions might be. I could go talk to 50 or 100 students in my faculty but that’s still less than 10 per cent of the entire faculty.”
