Greater Sudbury Mayor Brian Bigger and the 12 members of city council were compensated to the tune of a little more than $766,000 in 2020.
The final remuneration and expenses report was presented to city council on March 23, outlining the salaries, fringe benefits and expenses of the mayor and council for last year.
Mayor Brian Bigger was paid $180,448 in 2020, along with $48,424 in fringe benefits, which may include Canada Pension Plan, employer health tax, dental, extended health, OMERS, travel, life insurance, long-term disability, short-term disability, phone and internet allowances and parking benefits.
In terms of expenses, council and the mayor combined for roughly $200,000 in expenses last year, with the mayor's far exceeding those of each member of council, coming in at around $155,000.
Of the mayor's expenses, translation services for French-language press releases came in at $3,455, while office expenses ran a bill of $2,763 and advertising came in at a cost of $2,577 for 2020.
The larger expenses included internal recoveries for staff support and program support, coming in at $52,535 and $51,655 respectively. Bigger also spent $23,446 on consulting services in 2020, all of which was paid to Todd Robson Consulting for communications and advisory services at a monthly rate of around $1,950.
Bigger also accumulated $7,686 in travel expenses in 2020, with the majority of those expenses coming pre-pandemic. The mayor did have an expense of $1,221 for registrations for both he and his chief of staff, Melissa Zanette, to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference in September.
With travel limited for much of 2020, many city councillors came in well under their allocated $9,180 expense budget for the year, with only Ward 5 Coun. Robert Kirwan getting close to the expense cap.
Kirwan's expenses totalled $8,288, with the majority of that coming from mailouts of Ward 5 newsletters at $3,085 and travel expenses of $3,127.
Councillor salaries ranged from $45,152, up to $53,067 for 2020, with Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini coming in on the low end, and Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann and Ward 8 Coun. Al Sizer coming in on the high end.
Sizer had the lowest total of fringe benefits in 2020, collecting $9,408, while the majority of council were in the $13,000 range when it came to benefits.
Landry-Altmann had the lowest total expenses in 2020, using just $1,542 of her more than $9,100 expense budget last year. The Ward 12 councillor spent $758 on media notices and $297 on event tickets for local galas, including the Afro Heritage Association of Sudbury's Black History Month celebration last February and the Better Beginnings Better Futures Gala in early March.
The remaining members of council all came in well under their expense budgets last year, spending anywhere between $2,600 to $5,400.
You can find the full council remuneration and expenses report for 2020 here.
