Napier City Council CEO’s spending cap raised despite Mayor’s concerns
Napier City Council has voted to increase the delegated authority of chief executive Wayne Jack despite opposition from the mayor.
At their meeting yesterday, councillors voted 7-4 on a resolution which saw the limit on the amount Mr Jack is authorised to spend without a specific formal authorisation from the council increased from $500,000 to $1 million. The previous limit had been in place for at least ten years.
The proposed amendment was first brought to the Audit and Risk Committee on December 5 where it was decided it should go to the full council without recommendation.
The independent members of the Committee strongly supported an increase in the delegation, stating that $500k is “far too” low and EIT had recently increased their chief executive’s delegated authority to $1 million.
In May, Hastings District Council’s new chief executive, Nigel Bickle had his delegated authority increased from $500,000 to $5 million.
However, Mayor Kirsten Wise noted that her preference was to maintain the status quo from a political perspective.
“I had expressed concerns around an increase in financial delegation with regards to some of the perception and distrust issues that some members of our community have at the moment around our processes and I felt it was inappropriate at this time to be making a change such as this,” Wise said at yesterday’s meeting.
She said anything over the delegation went to the hearings committee which can be called together “at any time”.
Adele Henderson, the council’s director corporate services, said it was suggested that in meeting the balance between facilitating council operations (particularly in the infrastructure space) and ensuring council oversight, a delegation of $1 million may be more fit for purpose in the current procurement environment.
Jack defended the move, saying the increase in authority was only to enable expenditure which has already been approved.
“Anything that is outside of [the approved] plan would have to come to council anyway. So, all it is enabling us to do is allow council officers to get on and deliver the work programme in an efficient way,” he said.
Councillor Graeme Taylor supported the motion, saying that it is about making the operation more efficient. Safeguards were already in place through budgets, he said.
