UnFare Hike
Some time ago I came out in favour of the Translink fare hike arguing that new equipment and increased service had a cost and inflation was an oft-ignored factor.
I may have been mistaken.
First a new board is appointed that does not include any elected officials unlike the previous board which included mayors of local municipalities. Next the qualifications and integrity of the members of this new board were brought into question. Then their meetings were closed to the public unlike the open meetings of the previous board.
All of those were discouraging mistakes but I wasn’t about to scream it from the rooftops. Yes, the structure, makeup, and format of the new board appeared a potential formula for abuse it wasn’t a foregone conclusion so I decided to give them a chance.
Their very first action was to approve a pay hike for themselves which increased their overall renumeration by a factor of 6, including a $200 increase on a per meeting payment bringing that up to $1,200.
They get paid $1,200 to have a private meeting. According to the media there’s no other organization funded by taxpayer money that operates in such a way.
In addition to the meeting increase the chairman of the board saw his salary double over that of his predecessors from $50,000 to $100,000.
I have trouble imagining anyone being able to defend this. Who gets a huge raise their first day on the job?
They’re trying to justify it by saying they need to attract qualified people to the board but there are a couple problems with this. First they did just fine with elected officials, second the increase happened AFTER the board was formed so it had absolutely nothing to do with recruitment.
It makes me so angry I want to make a facebook group.
