Council CEO Mike Theelen gets 15% pay rise to $479,486

Following an annual performance review process completed by the Queenstown Lakes District Council’s (QLDC) Chief Executive Performance Review Committee, Councillors have approved a reviewed remuneration package for the Chief Executive, Mike Theelen.

Mr Theelen's salary will increase to $479,486 from his current $415,000, a 15.5 % pay rise.

Here is the full statement released by QLDC a short time ago.

"Mayor Glyn Lewers acknowledged the capable and strong leadership that Mr Theelen has demonstrated throughout his tenure and in particular through this last year.

“Rapidly changing government priorities, major capital investment needs, maintaining high-quality levels of service to the community, and responding to the myriad needs of significant and sustained growth in the district is a relentless challenge. A challenge that Mike continues to tackle head on.

In this last year, this Council delivered 88% of the capital programme; a substantial increase from previous years. Performance in areas such as resource consenting remains strong at 94% compliance within statutory requirements at a time of continued high application numbers. Maintaining Council’s AA- credit rating in a notably challenging economic environment has been a further achievement.”

“These achievements all speak to what Mike brings to the table and the successful organisation he has built around him. Mike has developed a positive workplace culture with highly engaged staff committed to serving the community they’re a part of. He’s also well respected at a regional and national level representing and championing the district’s needs alongside myself at meetings in Wellington and Dunedin. The strong relationships he has built means QLDC is at the forefront of sector changes and able to help shape as well as respond to them,” added Mayor Lewers.

The performance review process was facilitated by independent specialist consultants, Decipher, to ensure an objective and robust evaluation. The Chief Executive position has also been benchmarked with local government market data during this review process as the position had not been assessed since 2019, noting the last review was due in 2021 and agreed to be paused due to the COVID-19 response.

Mayor Lewers added, “the business of Council is an increasingly complex one for all local authorities but put this together with our district’s unique environment, ongoing growth challenges, changing national policy direction and fiscal constraints and you have an even more challenging environment to navigate. Few people can deliver on this and fortunately for us Mike is one of those who can. I continue to thoroughly enjoy working alongside Mike and his team who are forward-thinking, innovative and dedicated public servants.”

The Committee considered Mr Theelen’s performance and prepared its recommendation based on the outcome of its public excluded meeting on Thursday, 15 August. The Council subsequently approved a 2024-2025 total remuneration for Mr Theelen of $479,486 per annum during a public excluded session of Council on Thursday, 19 September.

Mr Theelen joined QLDC as Chief Executive in February 2016 and was reappointed for a further five years in November 2020 (effective from February 2021).