Newly elected Wanaka Community Board members have reacted sharply to the Queenstown Lakes District Council's decision to remove them from standing committees and reduce their salaries.
The four board members - Ken Copland, Dick Kane, Bryan Lloyd and Mike O'Connor - were not happy with the proposed payment of $12,249 they will each receive during the term and out-voted the three Wanaka councillors - deputy mayor Lyal Cocks, Leigh Overton and Jude Battson - on the recommendation.
This forces finance manager and deputy chief executive officer Stewart Burns to take the proposal back to the Queenstown Lakes District Council for further consideration.
The board members were disappointed that the new council had already decided members would not sit on standing committees and had changed the thresholds for mileage allowances to 30km.
This reduced the total payments to board members by more than $21,000 and increased councillors' payments, Mr Copland said.
Fairness and equity were at stake.
If the council wanted to save money, the $21,000 should go back to ratepayers, not to councillors, Mr Copland said.
"If you think you are going to take some $21,000 off board members and pay it to yourselves and have another three happy years [around the board table], then that is not going to happen," he said.
Mr Burns explained the previous council had appointed board members to committees during the last term to reduce councillors' workloads.
During the last term, board members who were on council committees received $17,688.
Mr Burns said the proposed new board payments would still be higher than the $9,641 received before 2007, when members did not sit on committees.
"You are not comparing apples with apples... The decision of the council not to include board members on standing committees has made the major difference," Mr Burns said.
Cr Cocks said comments by the board members were valid but he did not want to get into a detailed analysis of hourly rates.
The remuneration model had been around for several years but the motion had failed so Mr Burns had to take it back for further work, he said.
Councillors are to be paid $29,444 this term, compared to $28,077 last term.
The salary pool for councillors and board members has been set at $368,790 by the Remuneration Authority.
While the council can choose how it intends to allocate that pool to elected members (the amount has not changed since last term), the Remuneration Authority decides the mayor's salary.
That has increased from $85,316 to $91,900 this term.
