City councillors yesterday learned that their monthly stipends are being adjusted based on their attendance at statutory and committee meetings, according to the directions of acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba.
Since last year, the mayor and councillors of Georgetown have been complaining about unexplained deductions from their stipends. In February of this year, Mayor Hamilton Green wrote to the press saying Sooba had for several months been deducting monies from the meagre stipends of both him and councillors. He stressed that despite several requests for the formula used to make the deductions, none had been provided. Even a resolution of the full council, in November of 2014, requesting that Sooba provide the formula used for making the deductions within two weeks, failed to produce results.
However, at yesterday’s meeting the councillors again demanded to see the formula used, while emphasising that they are not paid a salary but a stipend, the size of which was agreed upon by the Local Government Minister and the council years ago. They stressed that it was not within the authority of the Town Clerk to change the agreed sums.
In the absence of Sooba, the acting Deputy Town Clerk, when asked, said that it was his superior who had directed the officers involved to make deductions.
The Treasurer was then asked to state whether he is in receipt of documented directions to deduct monies from the stipends of the mayor and councillors. He answered yes and, after a request was made, he provided the council with a document which directed him to pay them based on their monthly attendance at both statutory and committee meetings.
According to the document produced by the treasurer, a councillor who is expected to attend four monthly meetings and only attended three is to be paid 75% of the $45,000 stipend.
The Mayor and Council unanimously rejected the document, which Mayor Green said was “crafted on the assumption that councillors are daily paid workers.” He charged that Sooba and her senior officers were “wickedly trying to reduce the councillors to penury.” Councillors, he noted, “are on duty once they are breathing.”
