Senior administrators at the City of Kamloops defended rising management staffing and compensation levels during a lengthy Committee of the Whole meeting Tuesday, May 12, arguing publicly disclosed salary figures are often misunderstood and do not accurately reflect wage increases or taxpayer costs.
The presentation, titled Staffing Levels and Compensation Reporting: 2020–2026, was delivered in response to ongoing public and council scrutiny surrounding management salaries and the city’s annual Statement of Financial Information (SOFI) disclosures.
Employee Services Director Jennifer Howatt and Corporate Services Director David Hallinan spent much of the meeting explaining how staffing levels have evolved alongside population growth, service expansion and increasingly competitive labour markets.
According to the city, CUPE staffing increased by 56.39 full-time equivalent positions between 2020 and 2026, while management staffing grew by 14.32 positions and exempt staffing increased by 14 positions.
Howatt said management growth generally follows increases in frontline staffing because additional supervisors and administrative support are required as departments expand.
“The more union staff we’re hiring, then we generally will need more managers to kind of help direct and manage those staff,” she said.
The city reported a ratio of 5.54 CUPE employees for every management employee based on full-time staffing levels. Including part-time and on-call workers, the ratio rises to 6.76 to one.
Officials compared Kamloops staffing ratios with municipalities including Kelowna, Abbotsford, Prince George and Nanaimo, though staff acknowledged comparisons are difficult because municipalities structure services differently.
Councillor Nancy Bepple argued staffing growth should be viewed in the context of rapid population increases.
“The population in Kamloops in 2020 was about 94,000 and in 2026 was over 110,000,” Bepple said. “The size of the City of Kamloops staff for FTEs is increasing slower than the actual population rate.”
Bepple also pointed to major staffing additions within the fire department, including the opening of Fire Hall No. 7 in Aberdeen and the transition from volunteer firefighters to fully staffed operations on the west side.
“We’ve seen about 30 to 35 firefighters added to the complement,” she said.
Much of the discussion focused on the province’s SOFI reporting system, which publicly discloses employee compensation exceeding prescribed thresholds.
Hallinan repeatedly stressed that SOFI figures capture total compensation — including overtime, vacation payouts, benefits, emergency response costs and other expenditures — rather than direct wage increases alone.
“This report is not designed to show the reasons behind or where the funds originated from,” Hallinan said. “This only tells one portion of the story.”
Hallinan said the city participated in more than 30 emergency events between 2021 and 2025, including wildfire-related deployments to communities such as Cache Creek and Merritt.
“Those costs, while appearing on the SOFI report as either management or staff salaries and wages, are not paid by the taxpayers of Kamloops,” he said. “They are reimbursed monies coming from the province.”
The presentation showed SOFI compensation totals increased by 26% for CUPE staff between 2021 and 2024, 34% for management staff and 9% for IAFF firefighters.
However, city staff argued those figures should not be interpreted as wage increases because they also reflect staffing growth, overtime and one-time payments.
Hallinan said council approved management compensation adjustments in 2023 to keep salaries competitive with comparable municipalities and improve recruitment and retention.
“These changes were implemented to ensure the city’s salaries were aligned with the market median of market comparators,” he said.
Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson repeatedly questioned the scale and consistency of management salary growth during the meeting.
“I find a real inconsistency in management salaries,” Hamer-Jackson said, citing examples of some managers whose salaries appeared to rise from roughly $115,000 in 2016 to more than $220,000 by 2024 while others saw significantly smaller increases.
The mayor also questioned why some employees moved from unionized positions into management jobs with sharply higher salaries.
“You’ve got people going from a union position of $75,000 to a very short time making $140,000 in management,” he said.
Howatt responded that all city positions are formally evaluated through compensation scoring systems based on factors such as responsibility, staff oversight and accountability.
“It’s not a random selection of what the salary is for every position,” she said.
Howatt said salary differences between managers often reflect promotions, changing responsibilities or recruitment pressures tied to specialized skills.
“If someone starts in an entry-level supervisor [position], but then they become a manager or they become a director, their salary is going to change over time based on the responsibility, the number of staff, the accountability of that position,” she said.
She added that some internal candidates may initially join the city in unionized roles before later advancing into management positions.
“We actually consider that a success when we’re able to promote from within,” Howatt said.
Councillor Stephen Karpuk asked staff whether market competition has intensified in recent years, particularly for skilled technical and professional positions.
Howatt said recruitment challenges have changed significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The recruitment market changed dramatically after COVID,” she said.
Howatt said municipalities across British Columbia and Alberta are competing for the same skilled workers, particularly in engineering, information technology and specialized trades.
“We had tried about three or four repeated postings locally and elsewhere to try to attract people and we just couldn’t find the people who had the qualifications or the skills,” she said, referencing a recent specialized IT recruitment effort that eventually expanded to eastern Ontario.
Hamer-Jackson pushed back on suggestions the city must always match higher salaries offered elsewhere, arguing Kamloops itself remains an attractive destination.
“There’s a lot of people around the country that want to move to Kamloops and will take pay cuts,” the mayor said.
He cited lifestyle advantages including shorter commutes, lower congestion and proximity to outdoor recreation compared with larger urban centres.
The meeting also included discussion about conflict-of-interest rules after Hamer-Jackson questioned whether councillors with family members employed by the city should recuse themselves during staffing discussions.
Corporate Officer Maria Mazzotta advised council that recusals were unnecessary because no staffing decisions were being made.
“This is just a general conversation,” Mazzotta said.
Councillor Kelly Hall said the presentation helped address what he described as widespread misinformation surrounding SOFI disclosures within the community.
“I feel that within our community, there is so much misinformation as to how it’s been utilized,” Hall said.
City staff concluded by emphasizing that SOFI reports should be interpreted alongside annual budgets and financial statements rather than viewed in isolation.
