Doug Gilchrist

Doug Gilchrist is the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) and City Manager for the City of Kelowna in British Columbia, Canada

The external firm is Korn Ferry. They produce the market surveys the City uses for management pay. Those survey pages are almost entirely blacked out in the package.

On the City side, the visible record shows Stu Leatherdale (General Manager, People and Protective Services) sending the comparator table to the Audit Committee on November 6, 2023. Leatherdale’s department handles the exempt/management pay-band process and the surveys.

The Audit Committee is the Council body that reviews the City Manager’s performance and the management pay policy before it goes to full Council. In the 2023 open minutes that appear in the package, the members listed as present for related work are Mayor Tom Dyas, Councillor Ron Cannan, and Councillor Luke Stack.

Those are the names attached to the process. The actual closed-meeting votes and the full Korn Ferry numbers remain redacted.

City of Kelowna FOI Response on City Manager Compensation

The City of Kelowna released an 80-page package in response to an FOI request for Doug Gilchrist’s employment contract, pay-band policy, Korn Ferry market surveys, closed-meeting records related to his compensation, and payroll authorizations. The City first demanded a $2,000 deposit before it would process the request. Once the records were produced, large portions of the package were blacked out under multiple sections of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

The 2018 employment contract that appears in the package starts Gilchrist at $247,487 per year plus a $500 monthly vehicle allowance. Internal HR emails on pages 78–80 of the same package list the successive authorized increases that followed: $324,253 in 2023 (with the vehicle allowance raised to $870 a month), $341,158 in 2024, and $358,251.68 in 2025. Those internal emails were not previously public. The City blacked out almost the entire Korn Ferry market-survey section and the closed-meeting records that were supposed to contain the justification for the increases, while leaving the internal instructions that implemented the higher numbers fully readable.

Open council minutes included in the package show when meetings were closed under the Community Charter for items that included the City Manager Performance Review. The minutes list who was present. The closed-meeting agendas also list the performance-review item. The actual closed-meeting notes, the motion, the vote count, and any record of who supported or opposed the increases are blacked out. A majority of those present is required to pass a resolution. The package does not show whether the vote was 5-4, 6-3, 7-2, or any other split.

The external firm that produced the market surveys is Korn Ferry. On the City side, the visible record shows Stu Leatherdale (General Manager, People and Protective Services) sending comparator information to the Audit Committee. The Audit Committee is the Council body that reviews the City Manager’s performance and the management pay policy before it goes to full Council. The package does not show the full survey results or the closed-meeting discussion that applied them.

The public already knew the final totals that appear in the City’s yearly SOFI reports. What the FOI package adds is the City’s own internal paper trail that authorized the intermediate steps, set against the redacted justification documents. The raises are visible in the City’s own words. The reasons remain hidden. The vote remains hidden. That is the record the City released.