Brisbane City Council CEO Colin Jensen on $600,000 a year

THE amount of Brisbane City Council staffers earning more than $200,000 a year has grown dramatically, with one bloke now raking in almost $300k more than Lord Mayor himself.

SENIOR staff at Brisbane City Council are pushing into higher pay brackets with 85 earning more than $200,000 last financial year, up from 67 the year before.

The increase comes as an entirely new bracket appeared on the council’s annual report as one executive, Colin Jensen, edged past the $600,000 a year mark. The council disclosed the range of total remuneration for its 149 senior officer and executive service employees in its 2017-18 annual report.

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There are four employees who earned between $300,000 and $399,000, in the same pay bracket as Lord Mayor Graham Quirk, who earned $312,410.40.

Another five earned between $400,000 and $499,999, one employee made between $500,000 and $599,999, and one top dog earned more than $600,000.

Brisbane City Council CEO Colin Jensen. Picture: Tara Croser

Opposition leader Peter Cumming said senior and executive staff were “paid very well”.

“It’s difficult to justify it, when average weekly earnings is so much lower than what these people are getting paid,” he said.

“For the average worker, it’s a large amount of money and I can understand them being concerned about how much they’re (council staff) being paid.

“There’s a substantial increase in the number of people getting around $200,000 and it would be interesting to know why that has occurred.”

He said council’s high-level staff often shared in a multimillion-dollar bonus pool on top of those salaries and argued they did not need the extra money.

Opposition Leader Peter Cumming wants to know why there has been a big jump of staffers on more than $200,000. Picture: Peter Cronin

Finance and Economic ­Development chairwoman Krista Adams said the council needed high-quality executives to manage $3 billion of services and capital works for 1.2 million residents.

Each councillor’s total remuneration last financial year was $189,338.40.

Cr Cumming earned $208,272 as Opposition leader, while civic cabinet members earned $236,672.40, and the deputy mayor raked in $246,139.20.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison earns $528,000 and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk almost $400,000.