19 November 2025
North Sydney Council’s ten councillors increased their expense claims by a whopping 222% last financial year, even as some were warning of a financial crisis requiring service cuts and higher rates.
The new 2024/25 annual report showed overall councillor costs, including the mayoral allowance, rising 18.5% to $540,408.
But most significantly, claimed expenses on top of fees surged from $45,747 to $147,434 year-on-year.
This is despite several councillors, including the mayor, warning that the council faced extreme financial issues with infrastructure costs overwhelming future revenue. This was cited as the reason behind the need for a 87% rate rise earlier this year, now tempered to a proposed 40-55% rise following rejection by a state pricing tribunal.
The report detailed expense claims of $25,482 for dedicated office equipment, $63,932 on conferences and seminars, $18,605 on interstate travel including transport and accommodation, and $35,890 classified as sundries.
Several councillors charged conference and seminar attendance to ratepayers. Cammeraygal councillor MaryAnn Beregi expensed $345 for a Smart Synthetic Sports Surfaces seminar she had also attended in 2022/23. St Leonards councillor Godfrey Santer attended the Destination and Visitor Economy conference at Kingscliff, where ticket prices ranged from $1,100 to $1,350, in addition to travel and accommodation. He also attended the Local Roads Congress, with both events previously attended in the prior reporting year.
Seven of the ten councillors attended the Australian Local Government Association’s National General Assembly in Canberra at $975 per participant, up from four attendees the year before. Six councillors attended the Local Government NSW annual conference in Tamworth, where fees ranged from $1,250 to $1,550.
Training was another cost category. Cammeraygal councillor Shannon Welch undertook a Social Media for Councillors course for $264, the third consecutive year she had done so. Former councillor Georgina Lamb also repeated a report-writing course for the second year running.
These costs were in addition to councillor and mayoral remuneration. Councillor fees, including superannuation, tallied $30,384 each. Mayor Zoe Baker received $89,131 including super, up $4,571 on last year; combined with her councillor salary, her total remuneration was $119,515.
Earlier this year, a majority of councillors voted to adopt the maximum remuneration permitted for 2025/26 following the Local Government Remuneration Tribunal’s determination allowing metropolitan-medium councils to lift fees by 3%.