Waitaki district councillors, the mayor and community board members are to get a pay increase, described by one councillor as "a slice of cheese".
Yesterday, the council approved new salaries after the Remuneration Authority had increased the remuneration pool for 2008-09 by 0.9% or $2672 to $298,168, which has to be distributed among all its elected members.
"We had the block of cheese budget - this is a slice of cheese increase," Cr Gary Kircher said.
The council has a set formula for distributing its remuneration pool and yesterday it decided to stick to that when determining how much elected members should get.
The debate on approving the increase only took minutes, but the new remuneration (with the previous in parentheses) is:
Waitaki Mayor Alex Familton, $69,187 ($68,133); deputy mayor Cr Kircher, $22,340 ($22,182); committee chairmen, $20,943 ($20,795); subcommittee chairmen, $18,151 ($18,023); councillors, $16,775 ($16,636); Ahuriri and Waihemo Community Board chairmen, $12,556 ($12,447); community board members, $5585 ($5545).
