Council satisfied with CEO’s performance but not the right time for pay increase: Mayor Kevin Winters
14 November 2012
For the second year running there will be no pay increase in 2012 for Rotorua District Council chief executive Peter Guerin.
Rotorua mayor Kevin Winters said that Mr Guerin and the council had jointly reached the conclusion that given current fiscal constraints it was appropriate there be no change to the CEO’s salary again this year.
“This means Mr Guerin’s remuneration for the 2012/13 year remains unchanged from the level set two years ago in 2010.
“It’s acknowledgement of the difficult economic times others in our community are facing. Mr Guerin has shown admirable leadership in supporting this position and being prepared to forego any salary increase at this time.
“However the decision should not be viewed as a reflection on Mr Guerin’s performance. On the contrary he and his staff have clearly achieved much in the last 12 months, and they have continued to deliver services at high levels, with less available funding in many cases. Continuing low rates increases, high levels of satisfaction with council services by residents and a number of national awards support this,” said Mayor Winters.
Mr Winters said the council had last Friday completed their annual CEO performance review process with Mr Guerin. He said it was one of the mayor and councillors’ most important jobs as the chief executive was the only employee elected members had responsibility for. Under legislation the chief executive is responsible for employing and managing all other staff.
“While we identified a small number of areas that we want Mr Guerin to give more focus to over the next 12 months his performance assessment for 2011/12 was a substantially positive one. Councillors unanimously agreed that the grading ‘fully effective’ be applied to Mr Guerin’s performance, one of the highest rankings available to us in our performance review system.
“We used an independent remuneration expert from the company Strategic Pay to assist us with Mr Guerin’s review process. Strategic Pay advise 67 other local authorities on salary scales and performance measurement meaning we are able to get a pretty precise fix on what the appropriate market remuneration should be for our CEO."