Bundaberg Regional Council responds to accusations of CEO salary secrecy made in letter to the editor

A BRC spokesperson said salaries for the executive staff of all Queensland Councils, including CEOs, were published each year in their annual reports: Here’s what Bundaberg’s gets paid.

Bundaberg Regional Council CEO Steve Johnston. Photo: File.

The Bundaberg Regional Council has hit back at accusations about salary secrecy made in a letter to the editor last week.

The BRC spokesperson said salaries for the executive staff of all Queensland Councils, including CEOs, were published each year in their annual reports.

This is a statutory requirement under S201 of the Local Government Act. The Act requires Councils to publish the salaries of all executive staff in $100,000 bands.

“The Courier Mail recently published an article comparing the salaries of the CEOs of the largest 14 Queensland Councils with the 10 highest-paid New South Wales Council CEOs,” they said.

Bundaberg Regional Council was one of the Queensland councils featured.

“Bundaberg Regional Council’s CEO remuneration package under his current four-year contract is $428,600 per annum, which is consistent with other similar-size Queensland Councils, including our neighbouring Fraser Coast Regional Council.”

The spokesperson said a remuneration benchmarking review was undertaken by external consultants in March 2019, after which the Mayor exercised his delegated authority to increase the CEO’s remuneration to approximately the mid-point compared with similar-size Councils across Australia.

The increase was approved pre-Covid in November 2019 and took final effect in April 2020.