A need to pay employees adequately is one of the reasons that the Lake Country Art Gallery (LCAG) is requesting additional funding from district council.
“Our demands for operation costs are such that our increase in wages has been minimal,” gallery president Sharon McCoubrey told council at its Dec. 6 meeting.
McCoubrey noted that the executive director position pays just $25 an hour.
“If you were to compare that with any number of not-for-profits…you would notice that’s a great distance away from the industry standard.”
READ MORE: KCR: Lake Country Art Gallery
She added that if a staff member were to leave, it would be difficult to replace them with someone with the same qualifications at a given position’s current wage.
“We feel that to be a professional organization our staff needs to be adequately paid for the quality that they do.”
LCAG is also facing rent increases of five per cent for each of the next three years for the building it occupies.
The organization currently receives $65,000 in funding from the district and is requesting an additional $10,000 each for 2023 and 2024. It also receives funding from the provincial and federal governments, donations, memberships, fundraising, and other sources.
Council will take the request into its 2023 budget deliberations.
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