John MacDonald: Regional council's tone deaf $40k pay increase

What would you say to a $40,000 pay rise? Yes please?

If you’re the chief executive of Environment Canterbury regional council, you would.

It’s been revealed that in the last financial year, Stefanie Rixecker’s pay increased by 9.3 %, upping her salary by $40,000 to just under $480,000, making her the highest-paid regional council boss in the country.

And this wasn’t one of those decisions by the Independent Remuneration Authority, which sets the pay levels for politicians, which also gives politicians the excuse of saying they have no control over what they get paid.

This decision was made by the elected council members. An increase that the chair of ECAN, Craig Pauling, is busy defending. He says the $40,000 pay increase is "appropriate and deserved".

Appropriate and deserved because the chief executive is a respected leader and is running ECAN during a tricky time for local government.

Craig Pauling says: “It is important to our council that we have a high-performing and respected chief executive at the helm, during this significant time of change for local government.”

Time of change alright. Which is what the Government has been telling councils. And I imagine the noise from Wellington will get even louder when news of this pay increase makes it to the Beehive.

The chair of the council can say all he likes about the chief executive being brilliant at her job and how she has a lot on her plate and how it’s her job to lead ECAN through change and all that, but what he is missing, and what every one of those councillors who voted for this unfathomable pay increase is missing, is that a pay increase of just under 10% is la-la land stuff. On several fronts.

The most obvious is what a $40,000 pay increase for the chief executive of a regional council looks like to the rest of us. Those of us who pay rates to ECAN.

The other reason why this move is so wrong right now is because it looks to me like ECAN is explicitly ignoring the noises coming from the Government about local councils needing to cut their cloth.

How can you have these kinds of expectations coming at you —as well as the likes of regional development minister Shane Jones declaring war on regional councils— yet still give your chief executive a huge pay increase?

It shows just how out of touch our regional councillors are. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talk ZB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
What would you say? What would you say if I
offered you a forty thousand dollars pay rise? Would you
say yes please? Well, if you're the chief executive of
ECAN Regional Council, that's what you do. Because that is
exactly what she has done. It's been revealed this morning
that in the last financial year, Stephanie Ritziker's pay increased

(00:37):
by nine point three percent, upping her salary by forty
thousand dollars to just under four hundred and eighty k,
making you the highest paid regional council boss in the country.
And this wasn't one of those decisions by the Independent
Remuneration Authority, you know, which sets the pay levels for politicians,

(01:00):
which also gives politicians the excuse of saying, oh, well,
we've got no control over that. No, no, we're told
what we're getting paid. Now. This decision was made by
the elected council members at ECN, an increase that the
chair of the organization, Craig Pauling, is very busy defending

(01:20):
this morning. He says the forty thousand dollars pay increases
quote appropriate and deserved, Appropriate and deserved. End of quote.
It's appropriate and deserved because he says the chief Executive
is a respected leader and she's running e Can during
quite a tricky time for local government, and Craig Pauling says,

(01:44):
quote it is important to our council that we have
a high performing and respected chief executive at the helm
during this significant time of change for local government. End
of quote. Time of change, all right, which is what
the government has been telling councils. And I imagine the
noise from Wellington is going to get even louder when

(02:07):
us of this pay increase makes it to the beehive
and the Chair of the Council can say all he
likes about the Chief Executive being brilliant at a job
and how you know she's got a lot on a plate,
and how you know it's her job to lead e
Can through the change and all that. But what he
is missing, and what every one of those councilors who

(02:28):
voted for this unfathomable pay increases missing or are missing,
is that pay increases of just under ten percent are
la la land stuff. Especially at the moment and when
I say, at the moment I met on several fronts.
The most obvious one is what a forty thousand dollars
pay increase for the chief executive of a regional council

(02:50):
looks like to the rest of us. Those of us
who pay rates to e CAN, for example, are granted this.
She has rates increase. This is the ECAN rates, which
is sitting around the five percent mark, isn't as sky
high as what other councils are hurting people up for. Nevertheless,
they've got the timing for this all wrong. The other

(03:10):
reason why it's so wrong right now is because it
looks to me like e CAN is explicitly ignoring the
noises coming from the government about local councils needed to
cut their cloth. How can you possibly have these kinds
of expectations coming at you, as well as noises from
the likes of Change Jones, the Regional Development minister who's

(03:32):
declaring war on regional councils in particular, saying he doesn't
think they're needed anymore. How can ECAN get it so wrong?
And how can those councilors read the room so wrongly
not to see the writing on the wall and to think, oh,
it's a good idea to give the chief executive a
huge pay increase. How can they do that? Because that's
what it is, a forty thousand dollars pay increase. There's

(03:55):
no other way to describe it. It's huge. Nine point
three percent, forty thousand dollars. Whichever way you want to
describe it, it is huge. And despite all the claims
that it's deserved because the chief executives doing a great job,
because e Can's dealing with a whole lot of change,
despite all that, in my view, this is excessive and
it shows how out of touch regional counselors are.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
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