INCREASES IN SALARY

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23737, 8 September 1942, Page 4

INCREASES IN SALARY

SENIOR OFFICERS OF M.E.D. PROTEST AFTER COMMITTEE DECISION Objection to increases in salary being granted four senior officers of the Municipal Electricity Department was expressed by Cr. H. E. Denton when the City Council resumed open meeting after a discussion in committee last evening. Cr. Denton’s objection was based on three grounds: that the four men were already paid large salaries and that war time was not the time to increase them, that their salaries were out of balance with those paid to other senior officers of the council, and that any increase in their duties was caused by war work, which other council officers had done voluntarily. The officers concerned, their present salaries, and the increases recommended by the electricity committee and adopted by the council, were:—Mr J. H. Denford (accountant), £750, £35; Mr G. H. Battersby (assistant engineer), £7OO, £100; Mr J. C. Forsyth ,(electrical engineer), £IOOO, £100; Mr E. Hitchcock (general manager), £I3OO, £IOO. Increased salaries for other officers of the department were also considered in committee and approved. Cr. Denton said it might be argued that lighting restrictions had meant more work for these officers, but that was in the nature of E.P.S. work. The council had not given the Town Clerk any payment for the great amount of patriotic work he had done in his own time, nor had it given extra payment to Mr J. W. Huggins or Mr C. S. Bowie for the work they had done for the Home Guard. Every member of the council was doing E.P.S. or similar work and doing it willingly. Cr. Denton considered that the salaries paid to M.E.D. officers were out of proportion to those paid to the other officers of the council. They were paying the man in charge of a branch of the council’s activities more than the City Engineer, and the accountant of a branch more than the salary of the accountant in the city treasury. It might be said that thp. senior officers of the M.E.D. had built up the undertaking, but its growth wfis only partly due to their sound management, for which they had been well paid. ——— *