<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/7d239863-664c-459c-a82a-da537bc5432d/19202AC0-FE4E-4241-8AE4-097E2816EE7C/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.nenews.com.au/Stories/chStory04n.htm" href="http://www.nenews.com.au/Stories/chStory04n.htm" style="font-size: 11px;">www.nenews.com.au</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nenews.com.au/Stories/chStory04n.htm"><P>LOCAL democracy could cost Wangaratta ratepayers considerably more after the Rural City of Wangaratta’s November council election.</p> <P>The State Government has agreed to a 30 per cent increase on maximum annual councillor/mayoral allowances, recognising the need to attract the best quality candidates.</p> <P>For Wangaratta, that means councillors’ allowances can rise from $15,000 up to $19,600, and the mayoral allowance of $46,000 rise up to $60,700.</p> <P>Rural city councillors currently receive the maximum $15,000 per annum, while the mayor gets $40,000.</p> <P>Councillors elected in November will get to vote on whether they and the mayor should receive the new maximum allowances. </p> <P>Superannuation has also been introduced, with a nine per cent contribution to be paid while councillors will also be re-imbursed for travel, childcare, mobile phones and personal computers.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/19202AC0-FE4E-4241-8AE4-097E2816EE7C/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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