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The number of big Auckland Council salaries has been rising and new Mayor Wayne Brown is looking to change that.
The annual staff costs in the 2021/2022 financial year sat at just over $1 billion for council and its owned or controlled organisations, hitting the 10-digit figure for the first time since amalgamation in 2010.
The latest annual report also revealed that 257 staff across council organisations earned over $200,000. In the previous year, that figure sat at 222 and since 2015 it has risen by 60 percent from 155.
The number of staff earning over $300,000 is 56, one up from the previous year.
In several public statements, Mayor Brown put a target on the backs of middle managers, looking to cut the salary pool of $300,000 by 30 percent which would see more than $5 million cut from salary expenditure.
However, to advocate for this would require Auckland Council to pass a resolution.
Brown’s sway over council staff is also limited by the fact that only one employee is directly under the Mayor and the Governing Body’s control – that is chief executive Jim Stabback.
Stabback receives quarterly performance reviews from the Governing Body and in the last term it was repeatedly noted that he is councillors’ only direct employee.
The rest of council’s staff are managed by Stabback himself.
Another tack Brown could take would be to adjust the performance measures in Stabback’s quarterly review – provided the Mayor has a majority of councillors’ support for a change.
One of Stabback’s current performance measures is a target of between 6385-6485 full time employees, which earlier this year councillors discussed changing.
Even if Council adjust those performance measures, any salary adjustments would be in the hands of the chief executive himself.
During one of Stabback’s performance reviews last April, former mayor Phil Goff challenged the idea that council staff were overpaid.
“Whenever anyone tells me that we have got a bloated and overpaid bureaucracy I say, well if it is so bloated and overpaid why is it that we have the attrition rate of our skilled people going to other organisations?” Goff said.
Chief financial officer, Peter Gudsell, says the increase in employees earning more than $200,000 is because of a tight labour market.
“The high demand for a limited number of skilled workers drove salaries
upwards,” he says.
Council reports that it benchmarks salary levels for employees against the public sector and market rates, with 15 salary bands for similar positions.
Stabback was approached for comment but did not respond by the time of publication.
