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For the record

In last week's piece "Wage issue heats up in Squamish," the writer suggested that Councillor Paul Lalli was in agreement with Councillor Bryan Raiser that wages were too low, when in fact he only said that he could understand Raiser's frustration.

In last week's piece "Wage issue heats up in Squamish," the writer suggested that Councillor Paul Lalli was in agreement with Councillor Bryan Raiser that wages were too low, when in fact he only said that he could understand Raiser's frustration.

"When you look at other communities with similar population we're right where we should be," said Lalli on Thursday. "From my perspective if the council report showed a huge deficit (compared to other governments) I might look at it, but it didn't, it said we were right in the middle.

"I can't speak for anyone else on council, but in my opinion we are just coming out of a recession, and the appropriate place to discuss this is in budget discussions and not in the media."

Wages for the Squamish mayor and councillors vary in comparison to other municipalities depending on the criteria used.

In a comparison with a salary survey of 2007, mayor and council wages were the lowest paid of eight local governments at $35,932 and $17,234 respectively.

In terms of operating budget, roughly $31.6 million for the District of Squamish, the average wage - mayor and councillors - were in the 70 th percentile, with 100 per cent representing the highest paid elected officials.

In terms of population, Squamish's mayor fell in the 55 th percentile.

A hybrid comparison based on population and operating expenditures found Squamish in the 45 th percentile. Councillor wages were slightly higher percentage-wise than other districts at 48 per cent of mayoral pay. By way of comparison councillor wages were as low as 31 per cent of the mayor's in comparable communities, maxing out at 50 per cent.