Hoteliers call for municipal wage limit

The Banff Lake Louise Hotel Motel Association is calling on Banff Town council to set a limit for staff wages and benefits as a percentage of the overall operating budget.

Darren Reeder, the group’s executive director, said the business community is concerned the overall growth in salaries and benefits takes up a larger percentage of the operating budget each year.

He said the finance committee should establish a policy for a threshold for wages and benefits as a percentage of the operating budget, which should be included in the Town of Banff’s financial plan.

“Establishing a threshold for wages and benefits is to recognize there is an upper limit to what a municipality can afford to spend, or should spend, on human resources before other areas of the operational budget are negatively impacted,” he said.

“In tough economic times, private sector spending on wages and benefits is one of the first things to be rationalized; this is not the case in the public sector.”

The issue of wages and benefits is just one area outlined by BLLHMA in its fourth quarter report card for 2011, which rates council’s performance in a wide range of areas for October, November and December 2011.

Town officials say the consolidated financial statements, which also includes Banff Public Library and Banff Housing Corporation, show wages and benefits made up 31.36 per cent of the operating budget in 2009 and 28.91 per cent of the budget in 2010. The 2011 statements have not yet been audited, so they said they could not provide that information.

In 2009 salaries, wages and benefits were $8,676,460 and expenses were $27,668,588, while in 2010, salaries, wages and benefits were $8,772,850 and expenses were $30,349,641.

Banff Mayor Karen Sorensen said BLLHMA’s suggestion for wages and benefits would be discussed with the finance committee to see if that’s something council is interested in.

“Personally, I’m more interested in looking at service levels,” she said.

“For me, it’s philosophically about service. If the service review shows there’s some place to cut service, perhaps positions would follow.”

BLLHMA is also calling on council to repeal the 2.02 per cent tax increase in 2012 to make up a provincial funding shortfall for RCMP should the province ever come through with more funding.

In the report, council got a C grade for waste reduction and diversion policies and Bs for a sustainable transportation system, diversification of revenue streams, land use bylaw and delivery of municipal services.