A union have criticised Essex County Council after their chief executive topped a poll of best paid chief executives for the Eastern region.
Joanna Killian earned £285,152 last year putting her fourth in the top paid executives in the country as part of her joint role as chief executive of Essex County Council and Brentwood District Council.
Brian Strutton, GMB National Secretary for Public Services, said: “Council workers will be sickened to learn how much their bosses are creaming off and the levels of their bosses pay.
“This is at a time when councils say they are hard up and are slashing jobs and services while telling staff to put up with a pay freeze. These same chief executives have had the gall to say their lowest paid workers will not get any pay rise this year.
“When you add the ever growing number of council chief executives being made expensively redundant one day and popping up in another job the next, it’s no wonder that the top council jobs are being seen as the best of all gravy trains.”
Mrs Killian has been in her current position at the council since September 2006 and is set to hit the £1 million mark for earnings as chief executive this year.
Her wage equates to almost 10 times the amount that the average teacher in the county earns annually and easily dwarfs the wage of current Prime Minister David Cameron who earns a mere £142,500 in comparison.
Essex County Council defended the wage saying that they pay, “a fair price given the responsibilities, complexity and challenges of this role”.
“As chief executive of two local authorities, with joint annual budgets of over £2.2 billion, Joanna Killian has delivered £188m of savings over the last four financial years, including £59m in 2009/10.
“Over the next two years she will oversee and be responsible for the largest value for money programme of any council in the history of local government, saving some £300m by 2012/13, which equates to a third of the annual net Essex budget.”