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Penticton council decides communications department is worth its hefty budget

Comms worth the cash

Penticton city council, for the most part, thinks its communications department is worth the money it costs to operate.

At Wednesday's budget deliberation, Coun. James Miller proposed cutting $100,000 from city communications, which, as it stands, has a roughly $518,000 net budget for 2023.

He did not specify where those funds should come from, saying it would presumably be up to departmental discretion to divvy up how that budget chop would work out.

Council heard that currently, communications staff take care of multiple websites, social media accounts, news releases, podcasts, and all public engagement for the city.

Miller, who is the managing editor of the Penticton Herald newspaper, suggested that there are "phenomenal" unemployed journalists who, in his opinion, would take the job for less money.

"They're not demanding six-figure salaries. You pay them $1,000 a week with a benefits plan, straight days Monday to Friday, they'll think they've died and gone to heaven," Miller said. "And with no disrespect [to the current department], I think they'll do just a fine job."

As examples, top members of the communications team currently include JoAnne Kleb, communications and engagement manager, and Shane Mills, senior communications advisor, among others.

Kleb's salary was north of $97,000 in 2021, the most recent financial data available.

Mills was hired in 2022, and financial data for that year has not yet been released, though his predecessor with a slightly different title, Philip Cooper, had an annual salary of $142K at the time he left the position.

Coun. Miller used the example of a public relations person for the city he remembered being hired 10 years ago, who made less than $75,000 per year and worked "50-60 hours per week."

Some of his fellow members of council expressed their feeling that a comparison to 2013 was unfair.

"The demands put on communication teams over the last several years have increased dramatically. We're talking about much different platforms, aside from just print, and we're talking about much higher levels of societal expectations about the sophistication of what's being conveyed,” Coun. Amelia Boultbee said.

“If you want to see a reduction ... you need to show us where in this budget you would like to see that come out and corroborate that.”

Coun. Campbell Watt felt the same, praising, as an example, the outreach work that JoAnne Kleb has done since her hiring and the growth in community engagement she has brought with her.

“The salaries from 2013 today have changed drastically ... when you're trying to do a good job, you have to pay for that job,” Watt said.

“I fully support what’s been presented to us as a budget because I fully support what this communications department does for us in being a contact point for our community.”

Coun. Helena Konanz acknowledged that the "chasm" between government and private salaries is growing and has become a divisive issue, but did not agree that chopping the communications budget for the city was a solution to that.

Council voted 6-1 against the motion.

Budget deliberations are expected to conclude Thursday, although the budget will not be formally adopted until April.



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