{"id":141159,"date":"2025-11-18T12:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T12:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/141159\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T12:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T12:16:11","slug":"tauranga-city-councillors-get-15-56-pay-rise-mayors-salary-increases-to-193k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/141159\/","title":{"rendered":"Tauranga City Councillors get 15.56% pay rise, mayor\u2019s salary increases to $193k"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drysdale said: \u201cI think this is sensible\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, we\u2019ve got a pool of money that we have to allocate and … tried to keep that fairly consistent. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone gets paid the same with additional responsibilities for the deputy mayor, that her salary is between my salary and the councillors\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Remuneration Authority also introduced a new allowance for elected members to install home security systems. <\/p>\n

Drysdale recommended all elected members were eligible \u201con the proviso that we ensure we get value for money\u201d.<\/p>\n

He recommended a $4500 allowance for buying and installing the system, and $1000 annually for monitoring, callouts, and repairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure we could install a system for under that for most people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drysdale said there had been some \u201cissues around the country\u201d regarding security.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a sensible thing to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drysdale said elected members would need to submit a \u201cthreat assessment\u201d application before getting a home security system.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t give you an automatic right to it, but if any of the elected members are worried about their safety, they are able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

If an elected member\u2019s position became vacant, all allowances would be \u201cscaled back proportionally\u201d to the period of the financial year that the member was in position, Drysdale said.<\/p>\n

Drysdale and council chief executive Marty Grenfell would approve all claims. Scoular and one other councillor would approve mayoral claims.<\/p>\n

Council-controlled organisations – Bay Venues, Tauranga Art Gallery Trust, Tourism Bay of Plenty and Te Manawataki o Te Papa Limited – received no funding increase for the 2026\/27 financial year. <\/p>\n

The organisations were expected to continue being \u201cfinancially prudent in the tough economic and cost-of-living environment Tauranga ratepayers are experiencing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bay Venues – the council\u2019s largest council-controlled organisation – may be exempted from the $0 increase, subject to council approval.<\/p>\n

This would be discussed during the annual plan process.<\/p>\n

Megan Wilson<\/a> is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and the Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drysdale said: \u201cI think this is sensible\u201d. \u201cObviously, we\u2019ve got a pool of money that we have to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95742,95740,95743,95741,4765,2199,26519,71,1333,305,21325,83644,17250,111,43,139,69,2744,19764,1436,37477,23563,1227,165,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-141159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-95742","9":"tag-95740","10":"tag-95743","11":"tag-193k","12":"tag-annual","13":"tag-city","14":"tag-councillors","15":"tag-from","16":"tag-get","17":"tag-have","18":"tag-increases","19":"tag-increasing","20":"tag-mayors","21":"tag-new-zealand","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-newzealand","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-pay","26":"tag-received","27":"tag-rise","28":"tag-salaries","29":"tag-salary","30":"tag-tauranga","31":"tag-their","32":"tag-to"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}