Adelaide top of the list as SA mayors, councillors set for 2023 pay rises

Adelaide’s Lord Mayor pay is about to hit a new threshold as councillors around the state learn how big their pay boosts will be next year. See the full list.

The Adelaide Lord Mayor’s salary will break through the $200,000 barrier for the first time after a new pay rise for councillors was decided on Thursday.

The state government’s independent Remuneration Tribunal has released its four-yearly determination for local government elected representatives, with pay boosts set for mayors and councillors across the state.

For the next year, the Adelaide Lord Mayor’s salary is set at $195,851, up from $177,000 in 2018, but will hit the $200,000 mark next year.

The state’s councillors will get pay rises from their 2018 range of $6500 to $23,350 to between $7192 and $25,838.

Adelaide City councillors are big winners, going from $25,930 a year to $28,692.

Mayoral allowances of some suburban councils will break through the $100,000 barrier for the first time – four times the allowance of their councillors.

Mayors, deputy mayors and committee chairs are paid extra, and many councillors are entitled to allowances for expenses such as travel and meeting attendance.

Deputy mayors are given one-and-a-quarter times the annual allowance for councillors of that council.

Elected representatives are paid on a sliding scale with the largest by population paid the most – $25,930 – at Charles Sturt, Onkaparinga, Port Adelaide Enfield and Salisbury councils.

The next highest, earning $22,828, are elected to Holdfast Bay, Marion, Mitcham, Playford, Tea Tree Gully and West Torrens councils.

Only the tribunal can authorise rises about inflation each four years but a spokeswoman said for 2022 it “was not satisfied that more than CPI should be granted”.

Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor declined to comment.

Local government elections will be held in November, when the new rates will begin and then increase with inflation each year for four years.

The increases come after The Advertiser in June revealed more than 1200 of the top council staff in Adelaide are earning between $100,000 and $363,636 each year, prompting criticism about the way ratepayers’ money is spent.

The Property Council said at the time some of the inefficiency could be avoided by council amalgamations and said the sheer size of salaries did not “pass the pub test”.

“There’s too much inefficiency, inconsistency and duplication of services across 68 councils with 19 of them based in metropolitan Adelaide alone,” Property Council director Daniel Gannon said at the time.

Originally published as Adelaide top of the list as SA mayors, councillors set for 2023 pay rises