Lismore City Councillors will not get an increase in their pay for the 2020/21 financial year after a vote was carried at last nights monthly council meeting to keep the amount the same as 2019/20.

However, the vote was not clear cut with a number of amendments and foreshadow motions put forward. This was led by Councillor Adam Guise who asked for the fee to be increased to the maximum amount of $24,230, up from the budgeted $20,245 for Councillors while the Mayor's would increase to $60,080 from $45,400.

Lismore City Council has recently been categorised in the new category of Regional Centre, which has a higher maximum fee structure than the previous category.

"I am not about me asking for a pay rise for a pay rise sake but this amount that councillors get offered for doing the duties they do is a very tiny fraction about how we spend the rest of our $120 million to $130 million budget", Cnr Guise said.

All councillors agreed with Cnr Guise that the remuneration for the many hours worked during a month of briefings (as much as three per week), hundreds of pages of documents to read as well as workshops and the monthly council meetings themselves was inadequate. What some councillors disagreed with was the timing of a suggested increase. Councillor Marks adding that "we should work within the budget indicated on the document" and Councillor Battista saying "we do this job because it is our civic duty, we don't do it for the pay. We are nearly half a million in deficit, I can't see how we can accept an increase".

Councillor Bird then put up an amendment to increase the fee by the CPI increase of 2.5% which would add about $6,000 to the budget total but this vote was lost.

Finally, Councillors Marks, Moorhouse, Battista, Bird, Ekins and Lloyd all voted in favour to keep Councillors and the Mayor's fee the same as the 2019/20 amount.

Earlier in the evening, it was decided that councillors and the public would return to council chamber for live (as opposed to virtual) meetings "as soon as practicable". Of course this is dependent on the development or containment of the coronavirus.

The Local Strategic Planning Statement 2040 was passed with the addition of a report being presented to council by management will complete the modelling for the council's road network strategy which is already behind.

The Sport and Recreation Plan to 2024 was also passed but not without further discussion of the Lismore Lake Pool and the proposed $25 million Lismore Parkland development and the $1million maintenance bill. While some councillors love the overall concept of the parklands project it needs further discussion on how council can afford the maintenance costs and when that might be.