12 December 2019
Media: Rotorua Daily Post
Topic: Elected members' remuneration
Enquiry
Reporter followed up regarding Councillor Macpherson's comments during today's (12 December) Full Council meeting regarding elected members' remuneration. [For your reference see P22 report on meeting agenda and copy of Remuneration Authority's 2019 determinations regarding remuneration for local government members.]
Reporter's request:
Reynold provided me with additional information about his views, as I'm sure you saw.
In it, which he didn't mention in the council meeting, was that he said the pay increases "would signal monumental greed. I beg of you all, please do not support it".
I think it's only fair for the council or mayor be given an opportunity to respond to that particular statement.
Further question:
So there's been a review and the authority has said the Rotorua Lakes Council's total Government remuneration pool is $714,084. Do we have what the pool was last year? Has it gone up or down as a result of the review? I'm sure it'll be on that website somewhere but it's not jumping out.
Response
From Mayor Steve Chadwick:
It's clear to me that Cr Macpherson does not understand the remuneration process for councils. The total remuneration base for councils is externally set to avoid politicking such as I'm seeing now. I'm confident that we have distributed the remuneration levels across the responsibilities of Council to reflect the capability and contribution of the councillors.
The reporter was also referred to the Remuneration Authority website for further information/clarification regarding the process it uses to determine remuneration for local government elected members.
In reference to the further question regarding comparison to last year we also explained that:
-a direct comparison would not be possible as the Remuneration Authority has changed its process following a review;
-in previous years councillors' base salary was set by the Rem Authority and councils then got a pool to allocate for additional responsibilities, the pool based on a calculation determined by the authority with annual CPI adjustments;
-This time they have allocated a pool from which base salaries PLUS additional responsibilities are then determined by councils.
We advised it would be best to speak to the Rem Authority for clarity and provided THIS LINK on council's website to the 15Dec 2016 Council meeting to the report on remuneration for additional responsibilities.
