The first meeting of the year was held at Rotorua Lakes Council on Wednesday. Photo / NZME
The first meeting of the year was held at Rotorua Lakes Council on Wednesday. Photo / NZME
Rotorua’s deputy mayor will be paid close to as much as the city’s mayor - a decision the mayor has defended.
Tania Tapsell believes her deputy’s pay of $143,787 was justified against Tapsell’s $159,679 given Sandra Kai Fong’s numerous responsibilities.
The discussion was had at Rotorua Lakes Council’s first meeting of the year yesterdaywhen councillors agreed what they would be getting in their pay packets this year.
Each councillor is paid from a pool decided on by the Remuneration Authority, and Rotorua council’s allocated pool for 2022/2023 was $858,787.
The authority sets mayoral pay separately, and Rotorua’s was $159,679, up from $152,000 for the 2021/2022 period.
The pool is based on factors such as the size of the governance roles of each council, the average time required by an elected member on a council of a particular size, and a general comparison with parliamentary salaries.
The council sets its own base pay as long as it is above the set minimum of $59,442.
Councils made recommendations to the authority on the allocation of councillors’ salary pools, and generally, more responsibility meant more pay.
A starting point of $65,000 was recommended, compared to the previous $57,696.
Deputy mayor Kai Fong will be the highest paid - $143,787 - for her roles, including community and district development committee chairwoman. Her salary is about 90 per cent of the mayor’s.
Deputy mayor Sandra Kai Fong will be the highest-paid councillor. Photo / Andrew Warner
Councillor Trevor Maxwell asked why she would be earning a similar figure to the mayor. Tapsell said she supported the remuneration given the responsibilities Kai Fong had taken on.
“Fortunately for us, we have a deputy mayor that is capable and passionate.
“I’m very comfortable with where it is sitting at the moment.”
Councillors Gregg Brown, Rawiri Waru, Karen Barker and Fisher Wang will each get $97,500 for their roles as committee deputy co-chairs while the five remaining councillors will receive $65,000.
Conan O’Brien was the only councillor to vote against the recommendation. He had earlier asked how the pool was set.
District leadership and democracy deputy chief executive Oonagh Hopkins explained the council was involved when the authority undertook a review in 2019 in an attempt to alleviate discrepancies between the size of councils.
One of the findings was councillors needed to be paid accordingly to attract, in particular, young people. She said this group was not well represented before the review.
