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The cornerstone policy

The Pay Accountable to City Taxpayers (PACT) Bylaw

A crowd-sourced direct-democracy bylaw drafted in public. If passed, it ties the pay of London's councillors, deputy mayor, budget chair, and mayor to the City's annual property tax levy. Each percentage point council raises the levy locks in a permanent percentage point of pay decrement that survives every future base reset. Tax cuts erode the decrement back toward zero. The bylaw never generates a pay increase by itself.

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Every parameter, every section, every suggestion (accepted or rejected) is public. The audit trail is the accountability.

How council pay works today

London's elected officials are paid under City Policy CPOL.-70(b)-220, the Remuneration for Elected Officials and Appointed Citizen Members Policy. Section 4.2 of that policy adjusts pay on January 1 each year by the average annual variation in Londoners’ median full-time employment income, drawn from published Statistics Canada census data over the most recent census period.

On November 4, 2025, council voted 9 to 6 to expand that policy on the recommendation of a Council Resourcing Review Task Force report. The package added a new layer underneath the annual indexing: a one-time reset of the base pay, before the indexing runs.

The new base pay is set at the seventieth percentile of full-time employment income for Londoners. The seventieth percentile means the income level at which seventy percent of full-time London workers earn less, and thirty percent earn more. The base councillor salary will sit above what most full-time working Londoners take home, by design.

The same package also locked in a recurring re-peg of the base against future Statistics Canada census data, so the seventieth-percentile target updates automatically every five years.

The numbers, in plain dollars:

2025 base councillor pay: about $67,420.
2026 effective base pay, at the start of the next council term on November 15, 2026: about $94,222.
The difference: $26,802, or 39.75 percent.

That is the council pay raise nine of fifteen voted for. Different outlets reported different rounded versions of the percentage. CTV reported 35 percent. CBC reported 35 percent. Western Gazette reported 39 percent. The City’s own math, applied to the City’s own benchmark, produces 39.75 percent.

The asymmetry

Council pay tracks median income from census data. The November 4 vote reset the base and locked in a recurring re-peg. That is how a councillor’s pay changes. Even if council raises property taxes year after year and makes life more expensive or difficult for the people who pay it, their pay continues on its own track.

This is not an oversight. It is how the system is built. London is in the same position most cities are in: council controls both the levy and its own pay benchmark. No rule connects performance on one to compensation on the other.

Most cities accept this. London does not have to.

The Pay Accountable to City Taxpayers Bylaw closes the gap.

How this works in plain English

This bylaw adds one new section to CPOL.-70(b)-220. The new section creates a running tally called the accumulated decrement, expressed as a percentage and starting at zero.

Each year, the decrement updates with the levy change council just adopted:

If council raises the levy by 4 percent, the decrement goes up by 4 percentage points.
If council holds the levy flat, the decrement is unchanged.
If council cuts the levy by 5 percent, the decrement goes down by 5 percentage points, floored at zero. Decreases below zero do not bank as credit against future increases.

The decrement is then applied as a permanent percentage reduction to council pay, on top of every other calculation:

Section 4.2 of the existing City policy still indexes pay each January 1 by census income variation. The decrement does not touch that calculation.
Council can still reset the base every census cycle, exactly as resolution 2025-C06 directs. The decrement does not block that either.
After those calculations run on their own, the decrement is multiplied in at the final step. A decrement of 6 percent means council takes home 94 percent of what they would have otherwise received that year.

The decrement persists across base resets. If council re-pegs the base in 2028 (as resolution 2025-C06 directs), the decrement still applies to the new base. The only way to wipe the decrement is to cut the levy enough to erode it, or to repeal section 4.3 itself by passing a new bylaw through the same public process.

The decrement has no upper cap. If council raises the levy enough across enough years, the decrement can drive pay to zero. The bylaw includes a hard floor at zero so the final payable amount never goes negative.

Four properties keep the rule honest:

It is mechanical.: The decrement is a math operation tied to the annual rating by-law and the prior year’s rating by-law. Council does not vote on whether the decrement applies in a given year. Once the rating by-law passes, the City Treasurer applies the update automatically.
It survives every re-peg.: The accumulated decrement is a separate state variable. Future councils can change the base, change the indexing, or change anything else in CPOL.-70(b)-220. The decrement still applies on top until it is eroded by tax cuts or until section 4.3 itself is repealed.
PACT only cuts pay. It never gives a raise.: Tax hikes grow the pay cut. Tax cuts shrink it, down to zero. The pay cut never turns into a bonus. Pay raises always come from the City’s existing rules: annual cost-of-living indexing and the periodic base reset.
The Treasurer publishes the numbers.: The City Treasurer calculates and publishes the levy change percentage, the accumulated decrement, and the final pay payable to the Mayor and Councillors in the City’s annual budget documents every year. The math is on the public record.

The legal text is below. Every section has a “Suggest a change” button.

Pay Accountable to City Taxpayers (PACT) Bylaw

Status: draft, public consultation | Version: 2.2-draft | Last substantive review: 2026-05-23

Note to readers. This bylaw is a single-section amendment to existing City of London By-law No. CPOL.-70(b)-220 (Remuneration for Elected Officials and Appointed Citizen Members Policy). It adds one new section — section 4.3 — to that existing instrument. It does NOT re-enact base pay, annual indexing under existing section 4.2, the zero floor and wage-freeze pause in section 4.2, the recurring 70th-percentile base reset established by Council in resolution 2025-C06 (November 4, 2025), or any other component already in the City framework. Those provisions continue to operate untouched.

The v13 series is a fundamental architectural change from the v12 single-clause modifier of section 4.2. v13 introduces a parallel persistent ledger called the accumulated decrement, applied multiplicatively on top of whatever section 4.2 indexing and any future base re-pegs produce. The decrement persists across all base-setting events including the recurring re-pegs directed by resolution 2025-C06 Part (d). Levy decreases erode the decrement (floored at zero; no pay increase ever generated). There is no upper cap on the decrement.

Full audit trail, including the Perplexity Pro Deep Research audit on v13, the v13.1 delta-review, and the v13.2 confirmation review (all completed 2026-05-23 in the same Perplexity thread), is in docs/.

Preamble

WHEREAS the Council of The Corporation of the City of London is authorized under section 5(3), section 8(1), section 8(2), and paragraphs 1 and 3 of subsection 11(2) of the Municipal Act, 2001, S.O. 2001, c. 25, to pass by-laws respecting the governance structure and the accountability and transparency of the municipality, including the remuneration of its elected officials;

AND WHEREAS By-law No. CPOL.-70(b)-220 (Remuneration for Elected Officials and Appointed Citizen Members Policy) governs the remuneration of elected officials of the City of London;

AND WHEREAS the property tax levy adopted by Council in each fiscal year reflects Council’s exercise of its fiscal authority and represents the most direct decision through which Council determines the financial burden borne by City of London property taxpayers;

AND WHEREAS the Council of The Corporation of the City of London considers it appropriate, in the interests of fiscal accountability, alignment between elected official remuneration and the fiscal capacity decisions taken by Council, and the continued public confidence in the integrity of municipal compensation, to maintain a persistent record of the cumulative effect of Council’s property tax levy decisions on the remuneration of elected officials, applied multiplicatively on top of remuneration otherwise payable under this Policy;

AND WHEREAS this section does not affect the base compensation set or maintained by Council in any other resolution or by-law and does not affect Council’s authority to set the property tax levy or to set or update base compensation in any year;

THE MUNICIPAL COUNCIL OF THE CORPORATION OF THE CITY OF LONDON ENACTS as follows:

Enacting clauses

The provisions of City of London Policy CPOL.-70(b)-220 (Remuneration for Elected Officials and Appointed Citizen Members Policy) are amended by adding a new section 4.3 in the form set out in clause 2 of this by-law. To the extent that any prior provision of section 4 of the Policy relating to annual adjustment, base compensation, or levy-linkage is inconsistent with the new section 4.3, the new section 4.3 prevails.
The new section 4.3 of City of London Policy CPOL.-70(b)-220 is:

Section 4.3 — Permanent Decrement Tied to Property Tax Levy

4.3(a) Definitions. For the purpose of this section:

(i) “Annual rating by-law” means the by-law passed by Council in each fiscal year under subsection 312(2) of the Municipal Act, 2001 that sets the rates of taxation upon the assessment of the lands and premises in the City of London for the purpose of raising the general local municipality levy for that year.

(ii) “Total municipal tax levy” for a fiscal year means the total amount identified in the annual rating by-law as the amount to be levied by the City of London for municipal purposes, as that figure is originally adopted by Council in the annual rating by-law for that year. The total municipal tax levy excludes, to the extent each is separately identified in the annual rating by-law: (A) any amount levied for education purposes as set by the Province of Ontario, and (B) any amount identified as arising from changes in assessment values determined by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation. If any such amount is not separately identified in the annual rating by-law, the total municipal tax levy is the figure as presented in the by-law for municipal purposes without further reduction. The total municipal tax levy is not adjusted for later supplementary estimates, supplementary assessments, or mid-year true-ups unless the annual rating by-law itself is formally amended. Where the total municipal tax levy for a fiscal year cannot be determined from the annual rating by-law, the determination shall be made by the City Treasurer and documented in the records of the office of the City Clerk.

(iii) “Levy change percentage” for a fiscal year means the percentage change in the total municipal tax levy for that fiscal year compared to the total municipal tax levy for the immediately preceding fiscal year, calculated as ((current-year total municipal tax levy minus previous-year total municipal tax levy) divided by previous-year total municipal tax levy) multiplied by 100, with the result rounded to two decimal places. The value may be positive (levy increased), zero (levy unchanged), or negative (levy decreased). Where the total municipal tax levy for the immediately preceding fiscal year is zero or cannot be determined, the levy change percentage for that fiscal year shall be deemed to be zero.

(iv) “Accumulated decrement” means a non-negative percentage value, initially zero when this section first comes into force, that is updated each fiscal year as set out in subsection (b) of this section. The accumulated decrement is a persistent state variable maintained by the City Treasurer and is not reset by any resolution, by-law, or amendment of this Policy other than one that expressly repeals or amends this section 4.3.

(v) “Remuneration” as used in this section means the base compensation of an elected official as set under this Policy, and any additional stipend or allowance paid to an elected official under this Policy as it may be amended from time to time, including without limitation any stipend paid to the Deputy Mayor or Budget Chair.

(vi) “Fiscal year” for the purposes of this section means the calendar year January 1 to December 31, being the City of London’s fiscal year within the meaning of section 285 of the Municipal Act, 2001.

4.3(b) Annual update of the accumulated decrement. For each fiscal year in which this section is in force, the accumulated decrement shall be updated as follows:

Updated accumulated decrement (in percentage points) = the greater of:

(i) zero, and

(ii) the previous fiscal year’s accumulated decrement plus the levy change percentage for the current fiscal year.

The accumulated decrement shall not be less than zero in any fiscal year. There is no upper bound on the accumulated decrement.

4.3(c) Application to remuneration. For each fiscal year in which this section is in force, the remuneration payable to each City of London elected official shall be calculated as follows:

(i) first, compute the remuneration that would otherwise be payable under section 4.2 of this Policy and under any resolution, by-law, or amendment governing base compensation, applying all annual adjustments under section 4.2 and any re-peg or reset of base compensation in force for that fiscal year, all without reference to the accumulated decrement and without including any reduction attributable to the accumulated decrement from prior or current fiscal years; and

(ii) then, multiply the result of step (i) by (1 minus the current accumulated decrement expressed as a decimal fraction).

The resulting amount is the final remuneration payable for that fiscal year. For greater certainty, the operation of section 4.2 in any fiscal year is unaffected by the accumulated decrement under this section; section 4.2 produces its result independently, and the accumulated decrement is applied only at the point of computing the final remuneration payable. Where the accumulated decrement equals or exceeds 100, the final remuneration payable for that fiscal year is zero.

4.3(d) Persistence across re-peg events. The accumulated decrement persists across, and continues to be applied after, any resolution, by-law, or amendment that establishes, resets, updates, or otherwise modifies the base compensation of City of London elected officials, including without limitation the update directed by Council resolution 2025-C06 clause (d) and any subsequent periodic re-peg under similar resolutions. Any such re-peg modifies the input to step (i) of subsection (c) of this section for the affected fiscal year and subsequent fiscal years; the accumulated decrement continues to be applied in step (ii) on each such re-pegged value.

4.3(e) Calculation and publication by Treasurer. The City Treasurer shall:

(i) calculate the levy change percentage and the accumulated decrement for each fiscal year in which this section is in force,

(ii) maintain a record of these values in the records of the office of the City Clerk,

(iii) include the current fiscal year’s levy change percentage, accumulated decrement, and final remuneration payable for the Mayor and Councillors in the City’s published annual budget documents and in any annual remuneration disclosure required by law,

(iv) where the annual rating by-law for a fiscal year has not been adopted before the first remuneration payment date in that fiscal year, use the previous fiscal year’s accumulated decrement for interim remuneration calculations and reconcile any difference in the first remuneration payment following adoption of the annual rating by-law, and

(v) without limiting subsection (iv), where any calculation under subsection (i), maintenance of records under subsection (ii), or publication under subsection (iii) has not been completed before the date on which the relevant annual rating by-law is adopted, perform the calculation, recording, or publication as soon as practicable and in any event no later than 60 days after the end of the relevant fiscal year, and apply the resulting accumulated decrement retroactively to the remuneration for the relevant fiscal year, with any over- or under-payment reconciled in the next remuneration payment period following the calculation.

4.3(f) First year of application. This section first applies to the remuneration payable for the first fiscal year that begins on or after the date this by-law comes into force. The levy change percentage for that fiscal year is the percentage change in the total municipal tax levy for that fiscal year compared to the immediately preceding fiscal year. The previous fiscal year’s accumulated decrement for the purpose of subsection (b) is zero in the first fiscal year of application.

4.3(g) For Greater Certainty. This section does not alter the base compensation of any elected official as set or maintained by Council under any other resolution or by-law, does not restrict or alter Council’s authority to set the property tax levy in any year, and does not restrict or alter Council’s authority to set or update the base compensation. This section operates by maintaining and applying a separate accumulated decrement to the remuneration otherwise payable, and that decrement applies regardless of the value of any base compensation set by Council. Council’s authority to amend or repeal this section is not restricted, but any such amendment or repeal must be done through a properly-passed by-law and is subject to the same public process as any amendment to this Policy.

4.3(h) Internal Priority. If there is any conflict between this section and any other provision of this Policy, this section prevails to the extent of the conflict. For greater certainty, this subsection applies only to interpretation conflicts within section 4 of this Policy relating to annual adjustment, base compensation, and levy-linkage.

4.3(i) Rounding. All percentage and percentage-point calculations under this section shall be rounded to two decimal places at each computational step.

Coming Into Force

This by-law shall come into force and effect on the day of its passage.

A pilot for direct democracy

The drafting of this bylaw was conducted in public. The full text, every parameter, every section of prose, and the record of every suggested change, accepted or rejected, are available on GitHub.

This is a pilot. If elected, Matt Millar commits to using the same public-drafting process for every substantive motion he brings forward during his term of office. Direct democracy doesn’t replace representative democracy. It makes sure your councillor knows where you stand on every issue, not just at election time.

Read the full pilot commitment →