A botch-up about councillor pay in Dunedin might have been prevented if more attention had been paid to the need for fairness, the Remuneration Authority has stated.
The Dunedin City Council had to be told the pay scale it initially proposed was unlikely to be approved because the allocation would have been too low for two councillors without additional responsibilities.
"We did request that it be reconsidered because the substantially lower rate being suggested for their councillors without additional responsibilities would not have allowed us to meet the legislated requirement that our decisions are fair to the individuals concerned," Mr Summers said.
The pay scale was proposed by new Dunedin mayor Jules Radich and would have resulted in Crs Steve Walker and David Benson-Pope receiving about $16,000 less than committee deputy chairs.
The proposal had since been amended to largely close the gap.
He did not want to come across as a "bad loser", but felt compelled to write, "otherwise I’d regret it for the rest of my life".
The two councillors had been treated in an extremely punitive way, Cr Walker said.
He labelled the extra work to be done by deputy chairmen and chairwomen as amounting to about three hours.
Cr Walker said the discrepancy "seems like something that needs to be addressed in order to protect the integrity of our local body system in which differing voices exist, and a system that needs to be attractive and fair to potential future candidates".
Cr Walker told the ODT he had no regrets about writing to the authority.
Mr Summers advised him the authority did not get involved in internal politics.
In an email to colleagues, Mr Summers said he had not expected to see a pay cut in the order of 12% for councillors without additional responsibilities.
He had not expected to see a substantial decrease in any role where nothing had changed in relation to workload, accountabilities or responsibility.
A council spokesman said the council had followed guidelines.
"It was not immediately clear the allocation would be declined, but once the authority’s view was clear an updated report was brought back to council and approved."
Mr Radich said the authority’s guidance provided a minimum allowable remuneration, and this was not breached.
"The basis for changing our allocation is not mentioned in the authority guidance but once the authority chair suggested it, it was preferable to change our allocation rather than entering a contest."
The released information showed deputy mayor Sophie Barker was curious about whether the mayor was advised about consequences of the proposed allocation and the chances of the authority turning it down. The reason she asked was "so we may work to minimise issues next time and we all learn from this experience".
Mr Summers said the authority would assess whether its guidance should be clarified.
