Too many municipal councillors?

Maybe.

Is this a problem though?

In my view, one of the biggest challenges with the amalgamation/governance/126 elected officials discussion is that very few people are indicating what specific problem they’re trying to solve.

We keep hearing about cost savings and service efficiencies, but numerous very easily found studies debunk these theories.

So, let’s talk for a minute about the 126 elected officials in the Niagara region.

Are there too many? If you eliminated some of their positions would you save money? Or would you just make local government less accessible to the general public and more difficult to navigate? (More on this third question in my next post.)

Let’s talk costs.

While some who bemoan the costs of their local elected officials like to carry on about “fiefdoms” and “high-paying jobs,” I can assure you that the highest paid Councillors (those at Niagara Region, where I currently sit for the remaining few months of this term, as I decided a year ago that I won’t be seeking re-election) are not in jobs that are “high-paying.” If we were, I wouldn’t need to work 70+ hours a week at another job to pay my rent and put my children through school.

Anyway, I looked up the rates of remuneration for Councillors and Heads of Council for every municipal government body in Niagara and will compare them to the rates of remuneration for Councillors and the Head of Council in Hamilton.

Municipality (size of council, including head of council)	Total for Head of Council and Councillors
Fort Erie (7)	$201,977.39
Grimsby (9)	$266,960.01
Lincoln (9)	$215,075.00
Niagara Falls (9)	$343,869.61
Niagara-on-the-Lake (9)	$217,329.40
Pelham (7)	$187,202.00
Port Colborne (9)	$229,959.00
St. Catharines (13)	$573,473.00
Thorold (9)	$172,510.41
Wainfleet (5)	$74,030.57
Welland (13)	$416,621.23
West Lincoln (7)	$227,000
Niagara Region (32)	$1,567,226.33
GRAND TOTAL (138 — 12 mayors end up being counted twice)	$3,126,007.62

NOTES: As noted in the Grand Total cell, there is a double-count of the mayors here, as they serve and earn a salary in their capacity as Mayor, and they also serve and earn a salary in their capacity as Regional Councillor.
In every instance, I found the most recent data I could and, in the case of St. Catharines, I used what Councillors’ remuneration will be following the 2026 election. My hope is that using the higher number for St. Catharines will offset any issues with any of the numbers being lower than what they currently are.
In a few municipalities, I averaged the Councillors’ salaries to come up with a single number, as some Councillors are collecting different salaries in the same municipality.

That seems like a lot of money, to be sure. The salaries for Niagara Region’s Councillors and Chair is equivalent to one-third of a percent of the property tax levy. So, if none of these roles existed, the most recent property tax increase would have been 6%, rather than 6.3%.

Let’s also keep in mind that none of the councillors in the list above have staff. Each of us is working from a kitchen table, a desk in a living room, maybe a home office. And, unless retired, every elected official I know in Niagara has a full-time job outside of their Council role.

In Hamilton, 15 Councillors and the Mayor make $1,851,578.29.

Wow! What a bargain, right? They have more residents than Niagara and pay 60% of what Niagara does for their elected representatives?

Hang on.

In Hamilton, those 15 councillors has two or three staff people each, and they each have their own office space outside of their home. Estimating the salaries for each staff person at a very conservative $60,000 and estimating 2.5 staff per Councillor (since some have two and some have three), we need to add $2,250,000 to that figure now, bringing it up to $4,101,578.29…and that’s just adding the staff. It doesn’t include any figures for overhead for running each of these 15 office spaces.

I’ve done my best to compare apples to apples here. I’ve not included staff in mayors’ offices or anyone’s phone, internet, mileage, or other miscellaneous expenses, because some of us claim expenses and others of us don’t. For instance, I have a phone that I use only for Regional Council business, but I don’t expense it to the Region, as it’s a decision I made to have a separate phone. Likewise, I don’t expense my mileage to Regional headquarters for meetings like some of my colleagues do. However, if I go to a conference, as I did a couple of times last term, I expense that.

The addition of staff to the role of Hamilton’s Councillors is important, because it’s a very costly addition that we don’t incur otherwise.

Writing about the amalgamation of Toronto, Harvey Schwartz (2009) writes, “[t]he only component that decreased was the number [emphasis added] of politicians. Any cost savings here have been offset by increases in the councillor’s [sic] staff and in their office budgets” (p. 484).