In spite of overseeing a small northern community of only 1,000 people, Mike Natomagan is one of the best paid mayors in Saskatchewan.
Documents accessed under a freedom of information request show Natomagan earned a substantial wage of $91,000 in 2016.
By comparison, Prince Albert Mayor Greg Dionne who oversees a city roughly 36 times larger than Pinehouse, actually earned slightly less than Natomagan at just over $89,000 in the same year.
Natomagan also did well at the expense of the public purse in 2015 and 2014 taking in just over $90,000 and $82,000 respectively.
The freedom of information request was made by Saskatoon resident D’Arcy Hande and he says these types of abuses by key political officials in Pinehouse are outrageous.
“You wonder how a village of a population of a little over 1,000 people can sustain the payments that are being made to councillors alone,” he says.
However, even though Natomagan’s salary is extremely high for such a small community, he actually earned more than this in 2016 after billing for expenses of about $33,000 for a total of $124,000.
Hande says again there is no way an elected official of a community with so few people should be submitting those kinds of expenses on the public dime.
“The mayor being out of the village for example 139 days one year and 151 days another and charging $200 back to the village accounts for every day he is out of the village, he is getting a base salary of $60,000, I don’t think it is proper for him to be charging the village $200 per day for 151 days in excess of that.”
Aside from the high salary and expenses of Mayor Natomagan, the documents reveal that not only is Conrad Misponas paid as a salary as an elected councillor in Pinehouse, he also earns a wage as an employee of the village.
Hande says this is a clear conflict of interest and violation of the municipal act.
“We have a village councillor who is actually an employee of the village who is getting a salary from the village and also charging per diems for days when he is away from the village. In fact, the northern municipalities act and the local government election act stipulate that an employee must resign in order to serve on council. So, you cannot be an employee of the village and serve on its village council. That is against the law and not being enforced.”
This is not the first access to information request Hande has made to the northern village, in fact he has made many but he says they have almost always been blocked.
Last month, Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner Ronald Kruzeniski issued a scathing report on how Pinehouse continues to break the law when it comes to non compliance with such information requests.
In the report, he calls on the government to launch a full investigation into the community.
However, thus far Government Relations Minister Warren Kaeding has given no indication that he intends to launch such an investigation.
(PHOTO: Pinehouse Mayor Mike Natomagan. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski.)