The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is responding to a recent release by the CBC that shows the salaries of city employees in the biggest cities in New Brunswick.

Saint John  has the highest paid position with the City Manager making up to $200 thousand a year.  Moncton has the most employees with paycheques that can sit at over $100 thousand.

Vice President for Communications with CTF Scott Hennig says the City Manager’s salary is about the only one that makes a bit of sense.  “That’s the one that you could probably get close to justifying this sort of level of salary.  But when you start getting into the Director levels, it’s gets a bit tougher to truly justify salaries that are this high.”

He says taxpayers need to be raising some questions.  “There’s no question that the taxpayers of those cities should be asking for the wages to be coming down, or at least be looking at wage freezes for more than a couple of years to get them back in line with expectations, and also to try to help bolster the bottom line  of these cities that are struggling.”

Hennig also says Moncton residents need to take a stand.  “Basically,  Saint John and Moncton are the same size of city and they have ten fewer people who are making that type of salary, so I think that is certainly worth asking.”