100 FNDC staff now in $100K club

One hundred employees, or 23 per cent of the Far North District Council's total staff of 429, earn more than $100,000, according to a new report. Photo / Peter de Graaf

A recent report reveals Northland homeowners pay lower rates than the New Zealand average, while councillors and council staff in the Far North District have received above-average increases to their compensation.

The results - which come from the 2022 edition of the annual Ratepayers' Report league tables prepared by the Taxpayers Union, a right-wing lobby group - may come as a surprise to Northlanders struggling to pay their rates.

According to the report, 100 employees - or 23 per cent of the Far North District Council's (FNDC) staff of 429 - now earn more than $100,000.

This is up considerably from last year, when 64 FNDC employees earned more than $100,000.

The large increase means FNDC pays the country's eighth-highest number of $100,000-plus salaries.

For comparison, Auckland's council has 10,929 staff with 3002 - 27.4 per cent - earning more than $100,000.

Although councillors in the Far North are not employees of the council, they also earned more in the last year.

Their average salary of $88,556 was the country's fifth-highest, following Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington and Hamilton.

The figure also well exceeded the average for councillors in Whangārei - $64,615.39 - and Kaipara - $42,414.44.

And, according to the 2021 version of the report, it also represented an average annual increase of more than $15,000, up from $73,444.

A comparison to last year's report suggests another surprising change: that the mayoral remuneration dropped from $168,000 to $151,000.

Councillor and mayoral remuneration is determined by the Remuneration Authority, and, according to its chair Geoff Summers, the Far North's mayoral remuneration in fact did not drop - which may serve to demonstrate the need to take the report with a grain of salt.

According to data shared by Summers, mayoral compensation in the Far North rose from $155,000 in 2021/22 to $157,170 in 2022/23.

Summers also said FNDC was the eighth-largest territorial authority in New Zealand, which made it larger in size than some city councils.

"The size index for territorial authorities is based on four factors: population, total operating expenditure, total asset value and socioeconomic deprivation," Summers said.

"These four factors rank each council relative to each other, which in turn informs the levels of remuneration that the mayor and councillors receive."

Because councils varied wildly in size, a better measure of staffing levels was personnel cost per household.

By that measure, all Northland councils have lower staffing costs than average.

The figures are $1143 for the Far North (38th place), $1092 for Kaipara (44th place) and a mere $747 for Whangārei (64th of the 65 councils that provided data).

As far as rates go, Northland property owners seemed to be faring relatively well.

Of the 65 councils that would provide figures, FNDC ranked 37th with average residential rates of $2542, slightly less than the national average of $2644.

Kaipara was next with $2433 (43rd place), while Whangārei was near the bottom with $2294 (54th place).

If provincial councils are grouped together, to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison, the Far North ranks 16th out of 26, Kaipara 19th and Whangārei 24th.

When it comes to non-residential rates, the Far North ($4065, 32nd out of 65) and Whangārei ($4050, 33rd) occupied the middle ground, while Kaipara was slightly lower ($3830, 44th place).

Those figures are, however, skewed by districts with a small number of very large businesses.

They include Kawerau, where the average non-residential rates are $36,714.