North Vancouver school trustees vote themselves a raise

North Vancouver school trustees have voted themselves a raise.

The board of education voted Tuesday to hike the pay for their positions by 4.3 per cent, starting July 1.

Last year, trustees voted themselves a five-per-cent pay hike.

For the past decade, trustees have usually considered annual raises for elected positions in line with the Vancouver consumer price index.

The pay increase will bump the salary of the chair from just over $32,000 annually to about $33,500 a year and the pay for the vice-chair from $30,500 to $31,800 approximately. Pay for trustees will go from about $29,640 to just under $31,000.

According to staff, the increase puts the amounts for local school trustees in line with the amounts paid to trustees in Delta, Richmond, Burnaby and Vancouver.

Trustee George Tsiakos said he wasn’t comfortable voting for a larger raise than the three per cent that teachers and school staff will get this year.

But trustee Kulvir Mann said some years school trustees didn’t approve the raise in the past, and so fell behind other districts.

The majority of trustees approved the pay increases.