Conflict-of-interest commissioner Paul Fraser’s compensation has been in the half-million-dollar range for two of the past three years, far above the pay level set for the job, because the B.C. legislative assembly is making good on a pension promise that he said was made eight years ago, but not kept.
His salary for next year is budgeted to be $93,000 higher than the legislated pay level because of the additional makeup benefit.
It’s a confusing, misleading situation that reflects two things. One is the slack financial management of the legislature in prior years, before it was tightened up recently. The second is the disinclination on the part of MLAs to raise questions about what’s going on. Or to explain what’s going on, if they know.
Fraser referred to the arrangement while appearing before the legislature’s finance committee this week to explain his office’s $743,000 budget.
He said there were some unexpected developments, one of which was a decision by the legislative assembly management committee to provide him with a payment in lieu of a pension benefit. “That benefit has been paid in this current fiscal year and will be paid in the next fiscal year.
“All of that has to do with the fact that there were promises made and promises that couldn’t, for a variety of reasons that were no one’s fault, be kept when I was appointed. The fact was that in order to get certain benefits that are available to officers of the legislative assembly, you can’t be aged out.”
The public pension plan commonly forbids paying into the plan after age 71, which Fraser hit in 2012.
“It turned out that I was aged out on some of them, and none of us had any warning that that was going to happen.”
In an interview Friday, he said that during negotiations with the committee of MLAs that first approved hiring him in 2007, he was promised pension benefits on the basis of 1.5 years of pensionable time for every one year served. Some other officers of the legislature have similar arrangements.
Several years later, he learned the benefits were not applicable and raised the matter. Eventually, the management committee, made up of MLAs from both sides of the house, decided in his favour and commissioned an actuarial study to determine the value of the benefits he hadn’t received.
In the 2013-14 fiscal year, Fraser’s salary for what was then a part-time job was listed at $193,491.
But in a separate listing of supplier payments for the same fiscal year, Fraser is listed as receiving $337,230, for a total of $530,721.
In the next fiscal year, he received $201,204 in salary, with no additional payments.
In the 2015-16 fiscal year, he got $276,363 (full-time). And in the listing of supplier payments for the same year, he got another $214,200, for a total of $490,563.
Officers of the legislature, such as the conflict commissioner, ombudsperson, auditor general and representative for children and youth, have their salaries keyed to the salary of the chief justice of the provincial court, now at $273,000.
The two extra payments in the past three years represent pension makeup benefits for Fraser’s first five-year term, which started in 2008, and part of his second term, which started in 2013. The extra pay next year is to cover the rest of his current term.
Fraser said: “It looks like I’m making a whole lot of money. The concern I had was in public accounts, it would be fairer to have some explanation that there is a reason for it.”
He also expressed regret that he didn’t double-check the arrangements to make sure the pension benefits were as understood from the start.
Just So You Know: Fraser isn’t the only officer of the legislature with pension issues. The deputy representative for children and youth also briefed the finance committee on budget issues and noted a “potential pension remuneration issue with the outgoing representative” — Mary-Ellen Turpel Lafond.
There is no cost estimate at this point. It appears to involve a difference over the 1.5 years pension credit for every year served.
