Open in full screen mode Mayor Valérie Plante's office wants to remain consistent with the efforts required of the population and civil servants of Montreal. (Archive photo) Radio-Canada Feature being tested Log inCreate my account Speech synthesis, based on artificial intelligence, makes it possible to generate spoken text from 'a written text. The City of Montreal is renouncing the automatic indexation of the salaries of its 103 elected officials. The announcement comes after the publication of the 2024 budget, tabled on November 15, which notably provides for a 4.9% increase in residential property taxes, the highest increase recorded in 14 years. We wish to remain consistent with the current economic context and the efforts required of both the public service and the population to tighten the city's finances, indicated the administration of Valérie Plante . During each new budgetary year, a mechanism automatically adjusts the overall remuneration of elected officials according to the increase in the consumer price index (CPI) for Quebec, established by Statistics Canada for the previous year. This mechanism prevents municipal elected officials from voting for salary increases themselves and causing conflicts. Between 2014 and 2022, the salary of elected officials increased by 13.3% following the consumer price index, detailed the administration, specifying that over the same period, other City employees received increases above 18%. The fear of a negative reaction from public opinion, in a difficult economic context, seems having pushed the administration to renounce the automatic indexation of the salaries of its elected officials for 2024. In the show Tout un matin, the president of the executive committee of the City of Montreal, Luc Rabouin, justified the overall increase of the budget, which amounts to almost 7 billion, by inflation. All our costs are increasing, those of snow removal as well as garbage collection, explained the one who says he wants to preserve basic services. The creation of 400 new positions is nothing superfluous, he also assured. The City plans 200 new positions in the districts, around a hundred additional police officers at the SPVM, 33 more people at the Fire Safety Service, as well as the hiring of 20 additional school crossing guards. Deposit of the City of Montreal budget: interview with Valérie Plante With information from Marie-Josée Paquette-Comeau
