London city councillors who lose their seat in an election could still receive a payday on their way out of office, after a motion to provide municipal politicians with severance pay was supported by the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee on Tuesday. The decision was contrary to the final report of the Council Resourcing Review Task Force that did not recommend providing severance to politicians when they leave office. However, a motion by Coun. Elizabeth Peloza proposed that a councillor who fails to be re-elected receive one week’s additional pay for every year of service on Council, to a maximum of four weeks. Councillors who do not seek re-election or who vacate their seat for any other reason would not be eligible for severance. Coun. Peloza explained, “This is just recognizing that we’re an interesting, unique level of government, that we’re still doing our city job while campaigning, and ideally you’re not seeking (employment) if an election starts to go sideways. It’s just that potential, for four weeks (pay), to help you bridge the gap.” Members of SPPC voted (9-6) in favour of recommending council adopt the policy next term (Ferreira, Peloza, McAlister, Cuddy, Franke, Hillier, Lehman, Lewis and Stevenson in favour). Meanwhile, a majority of SPPC members supported the independent task force’s recommendation of a 35 per cent increase to a councillor’s base pay, plus four per cent more for chairing a Standing Committee and eight per cent more for councillors appointed to the deputy mayor and budget chair positions. Currently, councillors earn the median (50th percentile) full-time employment income in London based on data published by Statistics Canada. In November 2026, the current policy would pay $69,783. The task force recommended adjusting the formula to the 70th percentile, which would equal $94,222. “I think sometimes that’s forgotten in the conversation that this is an important job with a lot of responsibilities. And I think the pay has to reflect that,” said Coun. Hadleigh McAlister. Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis added, “If you’re running a family restaurant or whatever, if you want excellent employees, you don’t provide average working conditions. You don’t provide an average salary.” Coun. Skylar Franke suggested, “In order to have more people running, and more diversity of representation around the horseshoe, I think it’s important that we compensate people effectively for the role.” However, other councillors argued against the increase, at this time. “(Londoners) aren’t sure if they’re going to be employed next week, let alone next month, and then they see their elected representatives giving themselves healthy raises? I’m just not in favour of that,” said Coun. Paul Van Meerbergen. “I know we’ve all put tons of hours in, but I don’t feel like we’ve provided the value to taxpayers to be able to ask them to support this at this time,” said Coun. Susan Stevenson. “I do believe that a compensation discussion and the ward size discussion should be linked, and I support my earlier position that the size of council should be smaller,” suggested Coun. Corrine Rahman. Rahman also addressed the task force’s recommendation that council should be considered a full-time position, even if minimum hours can’t be enforced. “I recognize the privilege that I have and I bring to this decision,” she told colleagues. “I recognize that for me, the service component of this role carries a heavier weight and that is why I sit at this council horseshoe.” After a lengthy debate, the 35 per cent increase to councillor base pay next term was recommended by the committee 12 to 3 (Van Meerbergen, Stevenson, Rahman against). In addition, the committee unanimously supported not increasing the base pay for the mayor because the position currently earns 2.2 times more than a councillor. Council will make final decisions about compensation Nov. 4.
