Hobart’s deputy lord mayor will continue to receive extra pay for standing in as lord mayor after a motion to scrap the allowance failed on a tied vote.
Councillor Will Coats moved the motion at Monday night’s council meeting.
It sought to overturn a February 2024 decision that pays the allowance when the deputy lord mayor acts as lord mayor for seven days or more.
Hobart councillors are currently paid an annual allowance of around $46,000.
The deputy lord mayor receives about $76,000 and the lord mayor about $162,000, with both figures including the base councillor allowance.
Allowances are set to rise under a new statewide system taking effect from November 1, following the October local government elections.
Deputy Lord Mayor Zelinda Sherlock voted in support of the motion with Coats, Louise Elliot, Marti Zucco, John Kelly and Louise Bloomfield.
Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds and councillors Mike Dutta, Ryan Posselt, Ben Lohberger, Bill Harvey and Gemma Kitsos voted against it.
Coats said the allowance was introduced because of the deputy lord mayor’s extra workload, which had fallen as meetings were cancelled before the election.
His motion said the council had budgeted $6,000 a year for the allowance but had paid more than $21,000 since August 2023.
Coats argued the allowance was no longer needed this term and the next council should decide its future.
Council officers said the motion breached the council’s pre-election caretaker policy, which allows motions only in exceptional circumstances.
However, the policy is not law, so the motion still had to be listed.
Lohberger said it was not appropriate to even debate the motion and successfully moved to go straight to a vote.
Officers said the deputy lord mayor has acted as lord mayor 16 times since February 2024, with 10 of those periods qualifying for the allowance.
The motion follows weeks of confusion over who was leading the city.
In June, Reynolds said she would not contest October’s election and would leave early to join the Global Solar Council.
Chief executive Michael Stretton later told councillors she would step down in early August, leaving Sherlock in charge until the election.
Instead, Reynolds took leave and Sherlock acted in the role, but for about three weeks the council could not say who was in charge.
During that period, Zucco asked whether ratepayers were paying two lord mayoral allowances at once.
At the end of August, Reynolds told Pulse she would stay on until the election.
Hobart votes in October, when the council will shrink from 12 members to nine.
