Napier City Councillors have voted on their own pay rise of 6.19pc

Napier City Councillors have voted themselves a pay rise. Photo / File

Napier City Councillors voted on their own pay rise yesterday, with all but one voting for the 6.19 per cent increase to their salary.

Councillor Maxine Boag voted against the decision, saying she was unable to support a personal pay rise when the Napier City Council was not a living wage employer.

"The reason I am against this is that I am not happy with taking a sizeable salary hike when we haven't shown any support for paying our employees the living wage," Boag said.

"We are all very proud of how financially flush we are as a council, yet even some of our less affluent neighbours, like the Wairoa District Council, already have a policy to pay their fulltime employees above the living hourly rate."

Deputy Mayor Faye White said that, while councillors were paid close to living wage if they worked a part-time, 20-hour week, most councillors did more.

"I think we were pretty close to the working wage if we were doing 20 hours but I don't think ever since I've been in the job as deputy mayor I've ever done 20 hours, it's always considerably more," White said.

Boag agreed councillors did not get paid enough to live on if that was their only source of income, however, felt on principle she was unable to vote for the increase.

Councillors currently earn $39,938 per annum and will be moving to $42,413 per annum, a 6.19 per cent increase.

The mayor earns $130,556 and is moving to $131,514, an increase of 0.73 per cent.

According to the Statistics New Zealand consumer price index, inflation in New Zealand was 1.5 per cent for the 2017-18 business year.

Remuneration for councillors across New Zealand is set by the remuneration authority, not councils.