Council splits over GM pay rise decision

By Tim Howard

Clarence Valley Council has effectively split in two over whether it should grant its general manager, Laura Black, a 2%, or $7200 a year, pay increase.

In a bizarre extraordinary meeting last Thursday, the council voted 5-4 in favour of a mayoral minute which outlined why Ms Black should get the pay rise.

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But at the end of the meeting, which went into confidential session for debate, former deputy mayor Cr Greg Clancy handed Mayor Peter Johnstone a rescission motion, which will bring the matter of the pay rise back to council for the February 27 ordinary council meeting.

The result displeased Mayor Johnstone who was interviewed on Loving Life FM after the meeting.

“I’m disappointed it’s come up again and it will be up for further discussion,” he said.

“I would hope that the people involved will go through… they’ve got a copy of the full performance review – the general manager has put that up confidentially.

“I hope they’ll go through that and score it again.”

Cr Johnstone said councillors had to realise the performance review operated as a framework which the panel had to follow.

“The framework was set at the beginning, not other things they want to bring in,” he said.

“So if they could go back and score it and see what score they come up with and come up with a justification, then that’s obviously what I’d hope they’d be doing.”

But in an another radio interview soon after, former deputy Mayor Cr Greg Clancy revealed dissatisfaction with the performance review process.

Cr Greg Clancy said the rescission motion would give councillors who supported the general managers pay rise time to review their decision and change their vote.

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.

Clarence Valley mayor Peter Johnstone said he was disappointed that a rescission motion for the decision to award council general manager Laura Black a pay rise would bring the matter back to council.

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 Minister $315,008. The Deputy Premier of NSW was paid $350,329.

“In 2023 they (the State Government) put a freeze on all the salaries, but the NSW Deputy Premier is paid approximately what the general manager of the Clarence Valley Council is paid.”

Cr Day was also concerned the Mayoral Minute appeared to make the general manager responsible for success of the entire council operation.

“It would be quite bizarre if a council employing nearly 500 staff couldn’t achieve anything,” Cr Day said.

“And there are negatives as well as positives. The community deserves to be shown the full picture.”

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