Council splits over GM pay rise decision

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He agreed with Cr Johnstone’s assessment of the framework, but said it amounted to little more than a box-ticking exercise.

Cr Clancy had been part of a general manager’s performance review panel last year and revealed his dissatisfaction with it.

“I did not remain in that meeting previously because I was not happy with the way the meeting was run,” Cr Clancy said.

Cr Clancy said he had never been happy with the performance review process, believing it to be too limited in scope.

“I don’t believe the process is rigorous enough to investigate certain issues, certain aspects in a thorough enough way,” he said.

Cr Clancy defended the rescission motion, which three other councillors also signed: former Mayor Ian Tiley, current deputy mayor Jeff Smith and Cr Bill Day.

He said bringing the matter back to the next council meeting, where it would have been discussed in the normal course of events would allow any councillor who voted for the decision a chance to look at the issues and change his or or her mind.

There were a number of elements that made Thursday’s meeting truly extraordinary.

The four councillors who brought the rescission motion also called for the original extraordinary meeting.

They wanted to debate a motion to deal with a significant issue involving senior staff.

But without explanation other councillors decided to bring forward a Mayoral Minute calling for the general manager to get a pay rise based on her performance review.

Seeing this as a tactical move to disrupt their motion, the four decided to withdraw their request for the meeting, allowing the Mayoral minute to be heard alone.

Then in the council chambers at 4pm on Thursday a contingent of around 15 council staff arrived, clearly to support the general manager.

The group stayed around after the meeting went into confidential session and filed back into the chamber and applauded when the decision was announced.

The council’s Code of Conduct section 7.6 has a 12 examples of how staff and councillors must not interact inappropriately.

Speaking to The Northern Rivers Times on Monday (Feb 19th, 2024), Mayor Johnstone had no issues with the staff attending the meeting.

He said they had Flexi-time employment arrangement which allowed them to attend outside their work hours.

“As a group of ratepayers, as has anybody in the general public, anybody has the right to come along to council meetings,” Cr Johnstone said.

“But what I would say here is that if there’s an issue here, then the people concerned raising the issue, anybody, can put in a Code of Conduct complaint about the matter and it will be investigated.”

Cr Bill Day said councillors who supported the general manager’s pay rise needed to put it into perspective.

“Our State Member of Parliament, I looked up on the internet was paid in 2022 $172,576,” he said.

“A senior Minister, $333,072, a junior