Southland’s four council chief executives now cost ratepayers more than $1.5 million a year combined. That is the price of running the top of the organisation chart, before anyone has patched a road, upgraded a treatment plant or processed a building consent.
None of this is a scandal about individuals. It is a structural question about a small region paying for four parallel executive hierarchies, and it gives every business owner in Southland a clean benchmark for asking what their rates are buying.
Four chief executives, one region
According to Local Democracy Reporting figures, Invercargill City Council’s Michael Day is on $429,300, up 8% after a rise approved in August and backdated to 1 July. Southland District Council’s Cameron McIntosh earned $405,779 for the year to June 2026, up 3%. Environment Southland’s new chief executive Stephen Hall, who arrived in July, is on a $380,000 package. Gore District Council’s Deborah Lascelles sits at $298,725 including benefits.
Add it up and the total is $1,513,804. For context, Christchurch City Council, which runs a city of roughly 400,000 people, topped the Taxpayers’ Union’s 2025 rich list after paying $1,027,696 to two chief executives in 2023-24, a figure inflated by a leadership changeover. Southland spends half as much again on chief executives for a fraction of the population.
The layer nobody counts
The headline number understates the real overhead. Invercargill’s executive leadership team has six positions averaging $260,132, while Environment Southland has five general managers averaging $228,208.
That is $1.56 million at Invercargill and $1.14 million at Environment Southland, or about $2.7 million across 11 roles. Put that on top of the chief executives and the disclosed senior bill passes $4.2 million a year, and that excludes whatever sits beneath the top jobs at Southland District and Gore.
Elected leaders earn a fraction
The people voters can actually sack earn far less. Invercargill mayor Tom Campbell is on $165,687, Southland District’s Rob Scott $152,473, Environment Southland chair Jeremy McPhail $136,773 and Gore’s Ben Bell $128,211. Every mayor earns less than every chief executive in the region, and in Invercargill, Southland District and Environment Southland the elected leader earns under 40% of what the CEO does.
Mayoral pay is set by the Remuneration Authority. Chief executive pay is set by the councils themselves, usually after “market assessments” that benchmark against other councils doing exactly the same thing. That is a ratchet, not a market.
In 2025, pay equity expert Anna Ross made the point bluntly, arguing that “market data for CEOs is extremely inflated” relative to the skill and responsibility involved. You don’t need to buy her whole framework to see the circularity problem.
The exit costs too
The pay story landed weeks after another one. Former Environment Southland chief executive Wilma Falconer, who left in August 2025, was paid $474,077 for two months in the 2025/26 year, including $346,037 in severance, and kept her vehicle. Severance alone made up nearly three-quarters of the total.
One council source told RNZ it was “disappointing that this level of ratepayer money is not going towards improvements in the region”. Southland councils collectively paid out hundreds of thousands in severance over the year, with Falconer’s leading the list.
Gore has form here too. In 2023-24 it paid $771,588 to three different people in the CEO role, prompting Sam Warren, then the Taxpayers’ Union’s local government campaigns manager, to argue that if the budget stretched that far there should be room to deliver basics without excessive rate rises.
Water is the real test
This matters because the expensive work is still ahead. Under Local Water Done Well, councils retain responsibility for water services and the capital programmes that come with them. Every dollar spent on duplicated executive teams is a dollar competing with pipes, plants and roads, and ultimately with the rates bills of farms, retailers and manufacturers.
The fix isn’t to slash one CEO’s salary for show. It is to ask whether four councils need four full executive suites, or whether shared services, joint water arrangements and consolidated back offices could deliver the same governance for considerably less. Business does this routinely when divisions overlap. Local government rarely does, because nobody inside the system has an incentive to abolish their own job.
Southland now has the numbers on the table. Ratepayers and business groups should use them at the next annual plan round, and ask each council to show what $4.2 million in senior overhead delivers that a leaner, shared structure could not.
Sources
- ODT: Southland council chief executives earn combined $1.5m a year (2026-11-09)
- The Press: Southland council chief executives earn combined $1.5m a year (2026-11-09)
- RNZ: Retired council boss received six-figure golden handshake (2026-10-21)
- The Press: Southland councils pay out hundreds of thousands in severance (2026-11-10)
- NZ Herald: NZ’s highest paid council CEOs revealed, Christchurch chief’s salary tops $1m (2025-08-15)
- Taxpayers’ Union: Council Richlist 2025 (2025-08-19)
- ODT: Council pay levels out of whack, expert (2025-08-01)
- Southland District Council: 2023-2024 Annual Report (2024)
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