This week, the ‘Auckland Town Hall Rich List’ was released, an article revealing the names and salaries of the highest-paid staff at Auckland Council and its subsidiaries.

Published as an exercise in transparency and accountability, the list stated that “if someone is paid more than a government minister, ratepayers should at the very least know who they are and what they do”.

The results were pretty outrageous: forty-eight staff are paid more than mayor Phil Goff ($296,000) and seven are paid more than Jacinda Ardern ($471,000). Twenty-four of the rich listers are employees of Auckland Transport, eleven are from Watercare, six are from Regional Facilities Auckland, five are from ATEED, and five are from Panuku Development.

In a time where the future of New Zealand's economy is very uncertain, people were understandably upset to see the amount of ratepayer money going to these employees. 

“Oh my gosh! $775,000 for working with the council? How can they justify this?” said one local on a Rodney community Facebook page. Others seemed to share these sentiments with comments like ‘what a joke’.

But Auckland Council has objected to the release, saying there are inaccuracies in the numbers. 

“The information in the list they have published is inaccurate. As they say in their methodology, they have guessed the individual salaries based on salary ranges associated with position titles provided to them by the council. The specific salaries have not been confirmed by the council or individual staff members, other than the Chief Executive.

"We accept that there is a public interest in salary ranges for certain council roles, and we have already disclosed this information to the NZTU and it has also been made available on our website”.

The council annually publishes the number of employees earning more than $100,000.

The ‘Auckland Town Hall Rich List’ has taken the midpoint of salary ranges, then attached a name and a photo of the person they believe earns that amount.

Despite the financial chaos Covid-19 is causing, Auckland Council is considering yet another rate hike of 2.5 or 3.5 percent. 

The council chief executive, along with the chief executives and chairs of the major agencies have voluntarily taken a 20 per cent pay cut for six months, with tier two executives and board directors taking a ten per cent cut in response to Covid-19 financial pressure on public budgets, but the Ratepayers Association is calling for more. “We welcome early reports of salary cuts planned for council CEOs, but the Town Hall Rich List demonstrates these cuts can and must go far deeper.”