Auckland Council salaries: 86 officials earn more than $250,000
Figures released by the Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance today say that 48 staff earn more than Mayor Phil Goff's salary of $296,000. Seven staff at the council earn more than Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, whose annual salary is $471,000, the alliance claims. The list collated publicly available information about the pay of staff earning over $250,000, Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance spokeswoman Jo Holmes said. The alliance says 71 per cent of those identified on the list are men, including all six of the staff who are paid more than $500,000. On the list are 24 Auckland Transport employees, 11 from Watercare, six from Regional Facilities Auckland, five from ATEED, and five from Panuku Development. In an April 17 letter Auckland Council chief executive Stephen Town told the lobby group its figures were inaccurate. The council agreed there was a degree of public interest in the value of senior roles and had earlier provided salary bands - without names - attributable to senior council and CCO roles. The council believed that response met public interest, transparency and accountability requirements. The ratepayer group published that letter itself to show it had attempted to check the accuracy of its information before publishing. Holmes said publishing today's "Town Hall Rich List" was "an exercise in transparency and accountability". "If someone is paid more than a government minister, ratepayers should at the very least know who they are and what they do." However Town said in the letter that despite the inaccuracies, the council would not be correcting or confirming the salary figures or the names of the people concerned as it would be an "unacceptable intrusion into their privacy". Town referred to a previous Ombudsman's decision in which a request for specific details about Christchurch City Council salaries was refused, on the basis that privacy issues outweighed the public interest in releasing the information. "We object to you targeting specific council group employees and pressuring them to release their personal information. We ask you to refrain from doing so and to make any further requests for information through the official and proper channels," Town wrote.
But the alliance told Town that it had collated the figures using publicly available information - it had then taken the extra step of emailing those concerned to ask them if they wished to correct or clarify any information. "We totally reject your assertion that the Rich List is an 'unacceptable intrusion into [the] privacy' of the individuals listed... These aren't frontline or lowly paid anonymous staff. "Without exception, those listed are in senior positions," the alliance said.
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Poll: Should drivers retake the theory test every 10 years?
Drivers get where they need to go, but sometimes it seems that we are all abiding by different road rules (for example, the varying ways drivers indicate around a roundabout).
Do you think drivers should be required to take a quick driving theory test every 10 years?
Vote in the poll and share any road rules that you've seen bent! 😱
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49.5% Yes
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48.6% No
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1.9% Other - I'll share below
Here's Thursday's thinker!
I am lighter than air, but a hundred people cannot lift me. What am I?
Do you think you know the answer to our daily riddle? Don't spoil it for your neighbours! Simply 'Like' this post and we'll post the answer in the comments below at 2pm.
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Head here and hover on the Following button on the top right of the page (and it will show Unfollow) and then click it. If it is giving you the option to Follow, then you've successfully unfollowed the Riddles page.
Why make picking up reserved library books harder? What do you think? Challenge: Write the last stanza for the first poem attached below.
Once books are reserved in Auckland Libraries books, when they are available no longer go alphabetically by customer but instead go into a Holds pickup shelf number based presumably somehow on when each book needs to be picked up by.
I had two books reserved that arrived on two different days in the Blockhouse Bay Library and hence each book has a different shelf number. Hard to find unless you knew the shelf number in the notification email. Even if you knew the shelf number I found myself three books by the same author on the two shelf numbers.
More recently yesterday a book I reserved was on a different shelf number than was specified in my notification email (see image below).
Sadly it is clear from library staff that a numerical system for reserves is here to stay.
I suggest that so that all books for each person has the same shelf number, the shelf number becomes the last digit of a person's library card (0-9).
Within each shelf number a book is found under the day the reserve arrives in the library (01 to 31, hopefully the same date the email is sent).
Since a customer appears to have 10 days to pick up a book, ten days of the month would appear to be required at any time (for each digit 0-9).
Once there are 10 days used the next day's reserves could go back at the beginning of the shelf number after any remaining books not collected (hopefully none) are removed (along with the old day number and the new day number (01 to 31) inserted) after the last day available and future days' books remaining moved forward to make room.
Each day number (01-31) would appear once for each shelf number (0-9) before the first book on that day- perhaps cover an old withdrawn book with paper with each day number on the spine?
When a reserved book arrives in the library the last digit of the library card could be placed on a piece of paper in the book to be removed when it is put on the shelf, to be recycled the next day.
What do you think?
See the image below and page 3 below for a letter appearing in the Western Leader on 9 September:
www.neighbourly.co.nz...
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