$20k for Tauranga art gallery trustees

Tauranga's Art Gallery Trust has been awarded $20k by the council.

Tauranga's Art Gallery Trust is to be paid $20,000 next year after trustees decided they should be reimbursed for their efforts.

The city council has agreed to pay the trust's chairwoman $5000 a year and the six other trustees $2500 each.

It follows trust members unanimously deciding they deserved to be paid a "nominal amount" for the time, commitment and expenses of being a trustee. The trust had been the only council-controlled organisation in which its members were not paid fees.

Trustees sought payment of $12,000 for the chair, $8000 for the audit chair and $5000 for the six other members.

However, the council more than halved the amount suggested after taking into account the fees for some smaller New Zealand galleries.

If the $20,000 funded from rates survives the 10-year plan public consultation process, it would increase the amount paid to directors and trustees of council-controlled organisations to $281,000 next year.

In other decisions, the council opposed increasing directors' fees for Bay Venues by $29,000 and postponed a decision until 2016 to more than double Tourism Bay of Plenty trustees' fees to $69,000.

By far the biggest recipient of directors' fees was Bay Venues (BVL), the commercial arm of the council, which runs stadiums, halls, aquatic centres and Baycourt. The chairman gets $55,000 a year and the six other directors $30,000 each.

BVL's fees were based on each director putting in 186 hours a year, equating to an hourly rate of $295 for the chairman and $161 for directors. However, the average contribution last year was 213 hours.

Based on advice from Morrison Low Consultants that looked at similar directorships, it was proposed to increase the BVL chairman's fee by $11,000 a year and the other directors by $3000 a year each, boosting total remuneration to $264,000.

A recent meeting of the council opposed increasing directors' fees for BVL.

Tourism BOP's fees were proposed to increase by $7500 for the chairman, nearly $6000 for the deputy chair and $5000 for each of the six other trustees, boosting total payments from $26,000 to $69,000. The council decided to postpone a decision for Tourism BOP.