Roger Brownlie remains Mayor Richard McGrath\u2019s deputy mayor until the Tuesday meeting\u2019s vote, a council spokesperson has confirmed.<\/p>\n
Central Hawke\u2019s Bay councillors are at the other end of the pay scale. They had a 7.06% pay increase of $2853, taking their pay to $43,245, still the lowest in the region. <\/p>\n
Wairoa councillors saw their wages increase by 11.58% ($6678), to $64,324, while in Hastings, councillors\u2019 wages rose by 13.24% ($7,974) to $68,210. <\/p>\n
The Remuneration Authority said Hawke\u2019s Bay Regional Council councillors\u2019 pay increased by $1339 (2.04%), bringing their pay to $67,000. However, several councillors are paid more as they have additional responsibilities.<\/p>\n
The Taxpayers\u2019 Union estimated the rise for the regional council could be as high as 9.6%.<\/p>\n
Brad Olsen, chief executive and principal economist at Infometrics, said the latest household inflation rate for New Zealand was 3.1% per annum for the December 2025 quarter. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnother relevant measure, the change in annual hourly earnings, showed a 3.3% per annum increase in the December 2025 quarter, and the labour cost index rose 2.2% per annum for public sector roles.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said last year the Government had substantially raised fees for directors of Government boards and authorities, citing the relativities with private sector board remuneration and the workload of governance. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Remuneration Commission notes that \u2018the bottom of the councillor pay scale is anchored by a proportion of the annual average wage\u2019, and remuneration is scaled up from there depending on a range of factors, including workload, population of the area, total operating expenditure and total asset value of the council, and the socio-economic deprivation index,\u201d Olsen said. <\/p>\n
Remuneration Authority (RA) chairman Geoff Summers said it undertook a full review of all local government elected members\u2019 remuneration after each local government election.<\/p>\n
In this case, that was October 2025. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe new rates, with some exceptions, are payable back to the day after the election result for that council was declared, when the person is formally elected,\u201d Summers said. <\/p>\n
He said some roles were paid from different dates when elected members were appointed to roles with additional responsibilities, such as deputy mayor or chair of a council committee. <\/p>\n
The region\u2019s leaders <\/p>\n
Mayors\u2019 remuneration is set outside the pool, also by the Remuneration Authority. <\/p>\n
Wairoa Mayor Craig Little\u2019s increase was 11.58% ($14,053), putting him on $135,360 a year. <\/p>\n
\u201cIncreases are totally out of our hands. Remuneration is rates funded,\u201d Little said.<\/p>\n
Central Hawke\u2019s Bay mayor Will Foley saw an increase of 9.48% ($11,720), taking his salary for the year to $135,405. <\/p>\n
Foley said the council knew ratepayers were doing it tough. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs a Council, we are focused on managing costs wherever we can,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cElected member pay is independently set by the Remuneration Authority, which is the fairest way to ensure people from all financial backgrounds can represent their community.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hastings\u2019 mayor Wendy Schollum\u2019s increase was 8.46% ($14,122), which puts her on $181,032. <\/p>\n
Schollum said the council understood that any rise in elected members\u2019 remuneration at a time when many households were feeling real pressure from the cost of living and rate increases was hard to understand. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to clarify that elected members cannot opt out of the authority\u2019s determinations. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur focus remains on delivering the services and infrastructure our community relies on, managing costs carefully, and making decisions that support long-term resilience and affordability, making sure that residents get the best value for money out of their councillors.\u201d <\/p>\n
Napier mayor Richard McGrath\u2019s increase was 7.35% ($11,735), taking him to $171,317. <\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Napier City Council said Napier had one fewer councillor since its representation review last year, which meant each councillor received more of the remuneration pool. <\/p>\n
HBRC chairwoman Sophie Siers\u2019 increase was, according to the Remuneration Authority, the lowest of the leaders, rising 1.79% or $2754 to $156,423. <\/p>\n
The Taxpayers\u2019 Union disputed this, saying the HBRC chair\u2019s rise could be as high as 5.66%.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for HBRC said the councils\u2019 only discretion was how the remuneration pool is split among them. <\/p>\n
Total remuneration received by each elected councillor is disclosed every year in the council\u2019s annual report.<\/p>\n
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roger Brownlie remains Mayor Richard McGrath\u2019s deputy mayor until the Tuesday meeting\u2019s vote, a council spokesperson has confirmed.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15408,2177,6326,76910,10748,26519,1333,19724,5345,1943,296,35479,111,43,139,69,6270,2744,19257,381,6695,177617,223,8229,14005,3608,1316],"class_list":["post-330650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-almost","tag-average","tag-biggest","tag-bump","tag-came","tag-councillors","tag-get","tag-given","tag-increase","tag-inflation","tag-into","tag-napiers","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-office","tag-pay","tag-rate","tag-region","tag-regions","tag-squabbling","tag-the","tag-they","tag-times","tag-were","tag-when"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330650","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=330650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}