3 days ago
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Just a week prior to this week’s financial review of the Belize City Council, Mayor Bernard Wagner expressed disappointment after the Ministry of Local Government rejected the council’s request to revise salaries for members of the Belize City Council caucus. According to the mayor, the request was not new and had been formally submitted since 2024 as part of broader efforts to modernize compensation in line with the responsibilities carried by elected municipal officials. Wagner says the proposal was meant to ensure that councillors are properly compensated for the expanding workload and demands of managing the country’s largest municipality.
Bernard Wagner, Mayor of Belize City: “I speak very frankly on the matter of salaries that I believe that my council members have worked for the past three years, myself for the past eight years, have never gotten a raise, have never asked for an increase. You are telling me now that we can’t even look at our adjustments. And so we did that and we did it from 2024. We sent it in 2024. It was not because by law. Any sort of request which speaks to salary has to be approved through the local government, through the Ministry of Finance. It’s that mechanism that approves salary increases or stipend increase. I call it stipend, not salary. And so we sent that, it was not approved. We had two of our members did analysis of it to have it become equitable with our peers. It’s about just equity, right? It’s equity we are looking for. But again, it was turned on and so I will leave it at that. I will continue to work hard for the residents of the city until my time concludes.”
It is to be noted that the Belize City Council previously undertook a salary adjustment initiative for staff members, aimed at fairness across the organization. According to Mayor Wagner, similar consideration should be extended to elected representatives.
Bernard Wagner, Mayor of Belize City: “All our staff we undertook an entire assessment of what their salaries were compared to their peers done by a private sector group, salient group. They came back with us to the report and they said, “Listen here, a janitor at the Belize City Council makes x, a janitor in the private sector make x. This is what the peers in the public sector, in the private sector, is making as a janitor. This is what they are making as a grass cutter, as a maintenance.” And so we adjusted so that all of our staff, the janitors, the maintenance worker, the field worker, all of them receive adjustments in their salaries to come to peer level. We did that first as a responsible city council.”
For now, Mayor Wagner has conceded but feels that the discussion should remain on the table as municipal responsibilities continue to grow alongside city development.
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