Brampton Mayor Susan Fennell may have broken the law when she secretly lowered her 2013 salary at city hall amid fierce criticism over her high pay and lavish spending, some councillors say.

“I believe she broke the law,” said Councillor John Sprovieri. “Council approves our salary through a vote, after it’s set by our compensation committee. I believe you have to go through council if you want to change that.”

Sprovieri’s comments come after he and some colleagues were angered to learn Fennell had gone to staff to withhold her pay at the end of 2013 without putting it to a council vote.

In a letter dated the first week of November and marked “confidential,” which Fennell’s re-election team circulated Monday evening, she directs city treasurer Peter Honeyborne to have her “salary stopped” for November and December. This resulted in a reduction of $23,000 on her 2013 on her 2013 City of Brampton remuneration, to $147,082.

Including the extra pay she gets for sitting on the Peel Region council, Fennell’s approved earnings would have amounted to about $220,000 in 2013. The reduced city pay was what was reported in a provincially mandated salary disclosure report released Friday by city staff.

Under the Municipal Act, salaries for the prior year must be submitted to council each year by March 31, and the bylaw approving the salaries must be identified. Council decisions are considered binding and can’t be ignored or altered.

A spokesperson for chief administrative officer John Corbett cast doubt on whether Fennell’s actions were improper, saying in a statement that “the Municipal Act is not specific as to whether Council has to accept their salaries.

“Although Council’s rate of pay is set and approved by Brampton Council, decisions about how an individual member of Council wishes to have their pay managed or disbursed are personal.”

According to a spokesperson for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, municipalities “establish the remuneration and expenses for members of council and the procedures for how they are paid.”

Corbett did not respond to a question about when he learned about Fennell’s letter to Honeyborne.

Chris Bejnar, a spokesperson for the group Citizens For a Better Brampton, questioned the terms of Fennell’s secret arrangement with the city treasurer.

“Does this mean she can remove the stopped salary any time? Can she receive it in 2014 after the election? And if she can do this without going through council, could she secretly ask for an extra few thousand dollars if she needed it? It’s just such a violation of rules and procedures.”

Fennell didn’t respond to the Star’s question about whether she has since received the $23,000 or will get it eventually. In a press release sent to the Star, she stated: “I listened intently to the people of Brampton and acted accordingly.”

Explaining why she acted “quietly,” she used a quote from legendary U.S. college basketball coach John Wooden: “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”

Councillors were quick to respond to a release widely circulated by email Monday evening by Fennell’s campaign team, along with the “confidential” letter.

Councillor Elaine Moore listed several of the controversies surrounding Fennell’s spending of taxpayer money, including $175,000 spent without council’s knowledge on tickets to her private events; $186,000 on expenses such as $1,500 in orchestra tickets, $1,300 for Mandarin lessons, and a $1 iTunes download; plus travel expenses for herself and her staff, such as $1,850 airfares to Ottawa, $700-a-night hotel stays and first-class fares on three trips to Asia in a four-month period. Those expenses were revealed in a series of freedom of information requests.

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“The problem is she keeps getting caught later on,” Moore said. “What she did now is a violation of the rules.”

Linda Jeffrey, who resigned her seat as an MPP Tuesday to challenge Fennell for the Brampton mayoralty, also weighed in.

“This recent action by the mayor is too little, too late. The people of Brampton expect and deserve an open, accountable and transparent government at city hall. We must put an end to backroom-style politics.”

Sprovieri said Fennell’s move to reduce her apparent salary was all about the upcoming election in October.

“What’s going on here is that when the reports came out for (Fennell’s) 2012 salary showing she was the highest paid mayor in Canada, she denied it, even though the numbers don’t lie.

“She knew the report for 2013 was again going to show she was the highest paid mayor, but she didn’t want to publicly admit it.”

In 2012 Fennell was Canada’s highest paid mayor by a margin of about $10,000, earning $213,000 with the regional pay included — nearly $27,000 more than Mississauga’s Hazel McCallion, who also plays a dual role. She also received generous car and driver allowances, and one-third of her salary is tax-free — a vanishing benefit for municipal politicians.

In 2012, the next highest mayor’s salary was Calgary’s Naheed Nenshi, at $201,839.

Mayor Rob Ford earns $177,499 a year, and it is fully taxable.

(In Toronto, council salaries, set by council decision to automatically rise with inflation, were debated in public during the recent recession. In 2009, the mayor and 18 councillors dealt with the issue by publicly donating their cost-of-living adjustments back to the city using a donor declaration form handed in to the payroll department.)

“She is single-handedly ruining the reputation of this great city,” Councillor John Sanderson said of Fennell, against whom he is also running for the mayor’s job.

He said councillors will demand answers about her secretive salary manoeuvre at Wednesday’s council meeting, when the 2013 salary report is brought forward.

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