Contentious pay rises make local body politicians look like they have no empathy for their constituents, says a Whangarei District councillor calling for a review into how elected members are remunerated.
Whangarei district councillor Brian McLachlan will move a motion at Wednesday's full council meeting, calling on Minister of LocalGovernment Paula Bennett to implement a new approach for the setting of pay rises for public officials. Mr McLachlan said pay rises should be pegged to household income or the Consumer Price Index, not calculated using councillor's job size, the area's population and council expenditure as they currently were.
"The way to get pay rises is to spend more money," Mr McLachlan said. "It doesn't make economic sense and it looks as though we have no empathy for our ratepayers and [council] staff."
Mr McLachlan said while some of his colleagues may accuse him of political grandstanding over the issue, he was hopeful most would support the motion.
A Local Government New Zealand Report released in May showed councils nationwide were generally poorly perceived by the public. Those surveyed gave their local leadership an average score of 26 out of 100 and their council's performance a score of 28.
Whangarei District councillors received a pay rise of 4.9 per cent for the 2015/16 financial year, Mayor Sheryl Mai getting a 3 per cent raise. Ms Mai said at the time she felt "embarrassed" and was concerned how this would be perceived, particularly when council had announced a 9 per cent rates rise.
