Councillors seek staffing cost clarity

WAITAKI district councillors have raised concerns about detail lacking in council reporting on staffing costs.

At last week’s finance, audit and risk committee meeting, Cr Peter Garvan said staff costs was ‘‘something we seem to learn very little about’’.

He asked for councillors to be given breakdowns in the council’s periodic financial reports — ‘‘how many [staff], in what [salary] bands’’.

‘‘Obviously, our wage bills are a huge cost to council,’’ Cr Garvan said.

In the council’s second quarter financial report, received last week, the council is budgeted to spend $10,665,000 this year on ‘‘personnel costs’’. Last year it spent $9,914,000 on personnel.

Council chief executive Michael Ross said the reporting structure now used was three years old but he cautioned councillors ‘‘about how much detail you actually want’’ publicly reported.

Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher said seeing the amount the council paid for consultants in financial reports could be ‘‘very useful’’, as could more information on the council’s creditors. He called for a closeddoor workshop to determine ‘‘what kind of reporting could happen and should happen’’.

‘‘If we’ve got a good handling on what’s happening with finances it’s just a bit more security to make sure that we’re doing our job of giving proper scrutiny to what’s happening,’’ Mr Kircher said.

He said reviewing what the council paid for consultants could present opportunities for efficiency.

‘‘We’re always going to need consultants. It’s not a bad word as such, as some people make it out to be, but at what point are there opportunities around sharing services with other councils around employing staff with more specialist expertise and sharing them rather than us all paying the same consultant?

‘‘At what point are we paying consultants so much that we are better off having them on staff?’’

hamish.maclean@odt.co.nz