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Speaker 1: Now, despite the state of the economy, there is one

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Speaker 1: profession that's been benefiting from pretty solid pay rises, and

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Speaker 1: that's local councilors. The average salary of district and city

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Speaker 1: councilors went up nine point eight one percent last year,

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Speaker 1: and the biggest salary increase was at the Western Bay

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Speaker 1: of Plenty District Council, where the average salary went up

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Speaker 1: fifty seven percent to just shy of eighty one thousand dollars. Now,

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Speaker 1: the remuneration authority of the guys who set the salaries,

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Speaker 1: or at least the overall pool, and Jeff Summers is

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Speaker 1: the chair. He's with us now, Hi.

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Speaker 2: Jeff, Yeah, go af me.

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Speaker 1: How how did the Western Bay of Plenty Council go

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Speaker 1: up so much?

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Speaker 2: Well, they haven't actually, and I don't know where those

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Speaker 2: figures came from. The I know there's a plenty lobb

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Speaker 2: of political lobby group has been bending figures around, but

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Speaker 2: we don't know where they got them from. But we

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Speaker 2: haven't set the Western Bay of Plenty District councils salaries yet.

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Speaker 2: In fact, that's going to come up at our next meeting.

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Speaker 2: We we set the poll and then as a consultation

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Speaker 2: proceeds to allow local factors to be brought into the mix.

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Speaker 2: We asked the local council to put a proposal to

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Speaker 2: us on how they would allocate that pool, and then

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Speaker 2: we look at it. I understand their allocation has come

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Speaker 2: true to us, but we haven't dealt with that yet

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Speaker 2: and we don't always agree. We have sent them back

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Speaker 2: on occasions, but I'd be very surprised if the fifty

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Speaker 2: seven percent their pool was one of the larger ones.

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Speaker 2: Because after the local government elections, we do a review

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Speaker 2: of the entire sector, which is really complicated as you

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Speaker 2: can imagine the seventy six different councils, and they were

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Speaker 2: one of the bigger ones. Their pool went up about

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Speaker 2: twenty three percent because their population and expenditure and assets

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Speaker 2: and so forth had all increased, as had the estimated

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Speaker 2: workload of the council has gone from point five to

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Speaker 2: point six. Now. They also got from the Local Government

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Speaker 2: Commission Commission last year to reduce the number of councilors

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Speaker 2: from eleven to nine, so we've now got nine people

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Speaker 2: doing the work that eleven people used to do. And

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Speaker 2: most people would say, if I'm going to be doing

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Speaker 2: more work than what you know, some other people used

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Speaker 2: to do. I want more money for it, so I

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Speaker 2: would expect that they would have got a reasonable increase,

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Speaker 2: but you know, a number of councilors got very little.

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Speaker 2: That's the way the system works.

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Speaker 1: Hold on, Jeff, can I ask you some questions if

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Speaker 1: you don't mind. So, is it possible that you've set

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Speaker 1: the pool for the Western Bay of plenty, which is

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Speaker 1: seven hundred and thirty odd thousand dollars split between nine

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Speaker 1: councilors comes out at eighty thousand, eighty one thousand dollars.

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Speaker 2: Yes, well, yeah, it won't because they don't do it

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Speaker 2: that way.

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Speaker 1: But okay, that's and so if you say yes to

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Speaker 1: their proposal, then it will be a fifty seven percent

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Speaker 1: pay increase.

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Speaker 2: No, because all nine of them won't be getting the

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Speaker 2: same amount. The average isn't there will be Well, okay,

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Speaker 2: you can work on averages either, but I'm not allowed to.

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Speaker 2: I've got to be accurate. The law requires me to

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Speaker 2: do certain things.

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Speaker 1: How did you up they're pay that much, though, is

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Speaker 1: what I'm trying to get to. How did you make

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Speaker 1: the pool go up that much?

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Speaker 2: Simply by reference to the entire sector? Now, it is

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Speaker 2: really complicated and unfortunately that's not useful for radio. I

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Speaker 2: understand that. But after we did this system about eight

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Speaker 2: years ago, because nobody had found a reasonable system for

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Speaker 2: paying local government to that date, there was an awful

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Speaker 2: lot of work went into it, and after each local

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Speaker 2: government election we spend months doing this and some on

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Speaker 2: every occasion, there will be one council that gets lucky

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Speaker 2: because they're factors like population and so forth. He will

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Speaker 2: have gone up more than everybody else's and others won't

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Speaker 2: have gone up very much at all, and they won't

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Speaker 2: literally get anything out of it. But you know, this

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Speaker 2: year Western Bayer pend was one of the lucky ones.

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Speaker 2: But there were some really good reasons for that. The

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Speaker 2: population that the councilors look after has increased, Their operating

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Speaker 2: expenditure has gone up thirty five percent, the assets they

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Speaker 2: control have gone up twenty six percent. You know, there

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Speaker 2: are some big responsibilities that councilors whole.

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Speaker 1: All right, Jeff, thank you for running us through it. Appreciated, Jeff,

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Speaker 1: Your Cicada sound lovely. Jeff Summer's remuneration authority check for

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Speaker 1: more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive listen live to news talks.

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