Directors of subsidiary companies controlled by the Queenstown Lakes District Council will receive pay rises as a "fair and reasonable reward for managing the assets of the community", Mayor Clive Geddes said yesterday.
Councillors resolved that fees for the 2008-09 year for Queenstown Airport Corporation (QAC) would be $104,000, a 30% increase over the current remuneration pool for the company; Lakes Environmental $114,300, a 14.3% increase; Lakes Engineering $40,600, a 5.6% increase; and Lakes Leisure $101,600, a 31.9% increase.
The boards of Lakes Engineering and QAC will be requested to prepare amendments to their constitutions so that the clauses relating to directors' remuneration are consistent with the clauses in the Lakes Environmental and Lakes Leisure constitutions.
Mr Geddes and the QLDC chief executive would act jointly as the shareholder at the annual general meetings of each of the subsidiary companies.
The recommendations were resolved by the mayor and seven councillors but Crs Vanessa Van Uden, Cath Gilmour and Lyal Cocks voted against, because they did not agree with the percentage increases.
Ms Van Uden said she had a problem with the selection of a median quartile as the basis for caclulating the directors's fees.
Given the "piddling little operations" in Queenstown, compared with its counterparts in Auckland and Christchurch, she said the lower quartile was more appropriate.
Mr Geddes said QLDC subsidiary directors were managing $135 million worth of community assets and were responsible for $21 million in turnover.
The fee increases would be met from the companies' profits, and not by ratepayers.
"The recommendations are quite modest by national standards and what they've all done is improve the assets in a very short time," Mr Geddes said.
QLDC regulatory and corporate services general manager Roger Taylor submitted the existing council policy on directors's fees was set in 2003 when QAC was its only subsidiary company.
Lakes Environmental, Lakes Engineering and Lakes Leisure had become subsidiaries since then and a consistent policy on fees was needed, benchmarked against an outside measure.
Mr Taylor recommended the policy for annual review of directors fees should be benchmarked to the Institute of Directors Annual Survey, which categorised fees into lower quartile, median quartile, upper quartile and average ranges.
