Christchurch City Councillors have been ordered to be silent about the $16,000 pay rise given to their Chief Executive who is already on over half a million dollars per year. The Taxpayers’ Union believes this is unacceptable for three reasons:

• This is another example of unelected bureaucrats strong-arming elected officials.
• Highly paid bureaucrats should have any bonuses or pay rises reflect their performance and CCC is performing poorly.
• Decisions on spending ratepayer money should be taken in public and ratepayers should be able to know how each councillor voted.

Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager Callum Purves says:

“A council that is projecting rates rises approaching 10 percent and receiving record-low resident satisfaction scores is a council that is failing to meet ratepayers’ basic expectations. Rewarding an extremely highly-paid CEO with a $16,000 pay rise under these conditions is a slap in the face for those whose rates increases will total a similar amount over the next few years.

“What’s worse is that this decision has been taken behind closed doors and the Council is refusing to release information on how each councillor voted. Decisions on how ratepayer money is spent should be taken in public. Hiding behind a narrative of employment obligations fails to take into account the unique nature of working in an environment that is accountable to voters.

“That the unelected officials at Christchurch City Council felt they needed to explicitly command councillors to remain silent on the matter of the pay rise shows that they know it won’t be received well by ratepayers. It is time that the bureaucrats remember that they work for those the ratepayers elect, not the other way around.

“Half a million dollars per year is an unimaginable amount of money for many CCC residents and when they are being expected to pay steep rates increases, they should not have such spending hidden from them."

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