Council is considering an increase that would see the mayor's pay, including salary and allowances, go from $71,507 to $87,148 — a 22.5 per cent rise and a difference of more than $15,000. 

Councillors would see their pay rise by $9,000, from $26,078 to $35,000 a year, or a 34 per cent increase.

The deputy mayor's pay would fall in the middle, going from $30,000 to $43,000. 

The increase for all of council would amount to $128,994.62. 

Mayor Kate Rogers and each councillor were contacted by CBC. No one would comment before the proposed increases go to council.

"The mayor will not speak to remuneration until after Monday night's council meeting and a report is presented to city councillors," city spokesperson Elizabeth Fraser said an email. 

In 2019, after the federal government axed a tax break that municipal politicians received for part of their income, council hired an independent consultant, Kevin Malone, to review council pay. 

Malone's report recommended that compensation for the mayor, deputy mayor and councillors climb to the median level of comparable municipalities in the Maritimes. 

At the time, that meant an increase of 13.5 per cent in the mayor's salary and 29 per cent in the councillors' paycheques.

The recommendation would have seen the mayor's annual salary rise by more than $8,000 to $79,584; that of deputy mayor's by $8,000, to $38,920, and a councillor's by $7,000, to $32,600. 

In 2019 council, decided to defer the decision until after the election, which was supposed to take place in 2020 but was delayed until 2021 because of the pandemic.

What council is looking at now outstrips the Malone recommendation but would bring Fredericton's council in line with what councillors and mayors in Moncton and Saint John earn.

Remuneration would rise to $87,148 a year for Kate Rogers, who was elected mayor of Fredericton last May. (Jon Collicott/CBC)

According to the agenda for Monday night's meeting, council also looked at the Elected Officials' Compensation Guide created by the Association francophone des municipalités du Nouveau-Brunswick in coming up with the new pay scale.

According to the formula used, which took into consideration the services provided by the municipality such as arenas, pools, snow removal and police and fire service, as well as the government services located within the city, such as hospitals and universities, the size of the city and the average tax base per resident, the pay scale for Fredericton could actually be even higher. 

"The total number of points for the City of Fredericton, as per the guide is 12," says the report in the agenda.  

Using that measure, remuneration would move to $105,000 for the mayor, $47,250 for the deputy mayor and $42,000 for councillors. 

"Other than for the Mayor, the median amount suggested from the Malone report also falls within those ranges," says the agenda report.

Under a city bylaw, councillors already get an annual increase based on the consumer price index for New Brunswick, but the 2019 Malone report also noted that council hasn't had a meaningful increase in compensation since 2010.