Halifax mulls raise for city lawyers in budget deliberations
Municipality has 18 lawyers on staff
Higher salaries for city lawyers means an increase in the proposed legal budget for the Halifax Regional Municipality in the next budget, regional council heard Wednesday.
The municipality has 18 lawyers on staff to provide advice, review and rewrite municipal bylaws and handle lawsuits. The proposed budget for 2015-2016 has the city paying $600,000 more for them in the next fiscal year.
John Traves, Halifax's director of legal services, said in order to retain the expertise of those city lawyers, their salaries have to go up.
"Our compensation is based on the compensation scheme at the Department of Justice," he said.
Including the proposed $600,000, the total cost for legal services will be $3.7 million annual.
That prompted Mayor Mike Savage to speculate if it would be cheaper to hire outside firms on contract.
"It's long been my view that, in fact, while people complain about external consultants, that in fact in a lot of cases it's a better deal," he said.
Traves said the city does hire contract lawyers when they are needed. He points out the budget for contracted lawyers is nowhere near the $850,000 the city used to pay a year.
He believes the city is getting good value for its money.
"With the increased compensation, we are still seeing a net savings over our historic costs of in the range of $100,000," said Traves.
Councillors approved the general direction of the budget for legal services.
A full review of the overall budget for next year will take place at the end of March.