Innisfil must compete to keep key town employees, CAO says

Some taxpayers may flinch when they see how much the town pays its managers now, but keeping top talent means matching salaries with competing municipalities, council has heard.

CAO John Skorobohacz warned council members attracting and keeping municipal administrators often comes down to competing with higher salaries in GTA municipalities within commuting distance.

“I would put our staff up against any in the province, but we have to retain them,” Skorobohacz said. “There are headhunters that are calling our staff on a regular basis.”

To reflect the competition, the town added several York Region municipalities to a list it uses to compare wages and benefits.

East Gwillimbury, Newmarket, Aurora, Richmond Hill and Vaughan have been included in a comparator list that already includes Barrie and Bradford West Gwillimbury.

Skorobozhacz made $199,600 last year, while Aurora CAO Neil Garbe made $208,890 and Newmarket CAO Bob Shelton $239,230.

Only Coun. Stan Daurio discouraged adding large urban centres in the GTA such as Vaughan, with a population of about 300,000, to the list.

Daurio said he already has constituents complaining about public sector salaries at the town, which are published through the province’s annual Sunshine List.

“Wait until they see this in the paper,” he said. “I don’t think we have to be looking at places with eight, nine times our population and defending our salaries.”

The list is only used for comparison and does not tie the town to salaries paid in the larger York Region municipalities, Coun. Doug Lougheed reminded his colleagues.

“We still do the hiring and we still set the salaries,” he said.

Deputy Mayor Lynn Dollin said the town struggled for years to maintain top quality staff partially due to uncompetitive salaries.

“We were a revolving door while BWG took a bold step and increased wages,” she said. “People may love it here and want to stay here but if others are offering more, we just need to know what’s going on and what they pay.”

The town has seen some key employees move to competing municipalities including the town’s first economic development officer who now works for the County of Simcoe.

But Daurio said the town must also advertise the benefits of living in Innisfil, pointing to South Simcoe Deputy Police Chief Andrew Fletcher who came from Halton Regional Police.

“He chose Innisfil as opposed to money as to where he wanted to complete his police career,” Daurio said.