Langley Township council may take another look at how it gets paid, but it's likely to appoint an arms-length group first.

Councillor Kim Richter put forward a motion at Monday night's meeting, calling for changes to the current system.

The mayor and council recently got a hefty pay increase, pushing their salaries to $105,456 a year for new mayor Jack Froese, from $93,724, and to $42,936, up from $36,043 for the eight councillors.

The raises were automatic, based on a formula set by a citizens committee in 2000. The system looks at the pay scales of nearby councils and adjusts the Township's pay if its neighbours have increased or decreased. [Rich raises poorly understood, Dec. 20, 2011, Langley Advance.]

However, several of those neighbours have also set up systems that do the same thing, and include the Township in their calculations. So the interlocking systems have been driving council pay higher and higher around the Lower Mainland.

Most of the council was in favour of Richter's idea of looking at pay, but several, including Coun. Bob Long, wanted to remove her more specific suggestion that pay be merit-based.

Richter wanted to mandate only giving pay increases when the council meets certain performance targets, such as holding down taxes.

"Any additional pay we receive should really be treated like a bonus," she said, and if the council can't deliver, it shouldn't get a bonus.

Coun. Steve Ferguson said he believed the Township's council salaries are in the average range for communities its size.

"I don't think the time is now to look at cutting back remuneration," he said.

Ferguson compared the Township pay grade to that in Coquitlam, noting it is much higher in that city.

Langley Township's pay formula is strongly influenced by the salaries paid by Coquitlam.

The majority of the council voted to delete the ideas about specific, performance-based bonuses from Richter's motion.

Council will likely pass along the idea to a new citizens committee to take another look at the pay process and how it's managed. It will be discussed on Feb. 6.