Councillors Slam $1m Recruitment
Newcastle Herald
Tuesday January 22, 2008
CASH-STRAPPED Newcastle City Council is poised to spend about $1 million hiring 10 strategists, despite claims the city is falling apart and needs $134 million to meet its repair bill.
Two Newcastle councillors have hit out over employment advertisements at the weekend that offered salaries of up to $1565 a week for seven senior strategists with lease-back vehicles available. Another three salaries of up to $1279 were offered.Cr Aaron Buman and Cr Helene O'Neill estimated the costs of taking on the new staff at more than $1 million and said it was an alarming move for the council to make.It comes in the wake of a Local Government Department report for the 2005-06 year, which showed Newcastle council had 935 equivalent full-time staff. Lake Macquarie City Council, which catered to a much larger population, had about 100 fewer staff with only 831 full-time workers.Cr Buman said the increasing staff numbers was alarming."It [the advertised jobs] is really stressing me out, the whole city is falling apart and we have no money," he said. Cr O'Neill said the council should consider a staffing freeze until it had a new general manager. But acting general manager Graham Clarke said positions had been well planned."These positions are a result of last year's restructuring and represent a shift and consolidation of positions and focus on areas of identified priority," Mr Clarke said through a spokeswoman.BY THE NUMBERSCouncil staff numbers(full-time equivalent for 2005/06)COUNCIL STAFF POPULATIONNewcastle 935.0 146,967Lake Macquarie 831.0 190,320Port Stephens 405.5 63,579Maitland 304.3 61,517Great Lakes 288.0 34,659Cessnock 279.0 48,502Singleton 190.0 22,270Muswellbrook 187.0 15,149Gloucester 86.0 4917Dungog 68.0 8440Source: NSW Departmentof Local Government
© 2008 Newcastle Herald
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