An attempt by Mayor Amarjeet Sohi to cut his salary so that it equals the compensation received by Calgary’s mayor was voted down by Edmonton city council on Thursday as several councillors expressed the need for lawmakers not to play a role in deciding their own pay.
“That motion, if passed, would have been setting his own salary,” Coun. Andrew Knack noted. “And we have purposely designed a process to not set our own salaries.”
Knack was one of seven city councillors who voted against the motion. Five councillors voted in support of it.
The reason Sohi earns more per year than Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek is because while both city councils froze their salaries during part of the COVID-19 pandemic, Calgary salaries had been frozen for an extra year.
The salary for Edmonton’s mayor and city council is recommended by the independent council compensation committee so that city council is not tasked with setting salaries. A vote was …