SALARY INCREASES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 8, 7 December 1937, Page 8

SALARY INCREASES

HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS. COST OF REGRADING. (By Telegraph.—Specihl to Standard.) WELLINGTON, Dec. 7. The distribution of over a quarter of a million in extra payments is involved in the regrading of the Public Service. This is disclosed in the Supplementary Estimates, the department receiving most benefit bein the Post and Telegraph Department, with its ten thousand employees. Regrading will cost £125,000. There is another vote of £28,000 for regarding the first division of the Railway Department, which has over twenty thousand employees, and in this case the rank and file have obtained benefits from the 40-hour week which require a further vote of £60,813 to adjust anomalies arising out of its introduction, this being a proportion of an estimated annual cost of £104,250. The most significant change shown in the Estimates is an attempt to remunerate the higher departmental officers on a scale commensurate with their responsibility. Criticism was beard in Parliament of the £ISOO paid to the heads of the newest services of broadcasting, but increments in the Supplementary Estimates bring the General Manager of Railways to. £I6OO, Chief Engineer of Public Works to £ISOO, and the Director-General of the Post Office to £1500; while on the £1350 mark are the Comptroller of Customs, Director-General of Education, and heads of the Health and Mental Hospitals Departments. The Permanent Head of the Prime Minister s Department will receive £I2OO, the Director-General of Agriculture and Secretary of Industries and Commerce £I3OO each; and the secretary of the Marine Department and the Commissioner of Police £IOOO each.