The Minister for Local Government has identified The Hilltops as a Rural Council and set Councillor wages to the lowest scale.

But in a submission to the Local Government Remuneration Tribunal Council's Executive Director Corporate and Community Lee Furness has asked for Councillor wages to be lifted in line with their interstate colleagues. 

"Council’s view is that any categorisation should not be on population alone," she said.

"Recent Council amalgamations have seen larger entities and a resulting increase in complexity. When new Councils are elected in 2017, there will be greater demands on the time of individual Councillors, and they should be fairly remunerated for this.

"Many councillors work almost full time on council-related activities, and most have to also hold down a full-time job to support their families over and above council commitments. In many respects, councillors are never off duty."

Mrs Furness said Hilltops councillors would be paid less than the minimum wage.

"The minimum wage in Australia is approximately $35,000 per annum, but a Hilltops councillor will be paid $11,004 per year and the Mayor $24,630," she said.

"A councillor on a similar size council in Victoria gets $24,760, and in Queensland, the wage is $66,450. At the very least councillors should be remunerated at the level of the minimum wage with Mayors paid at a higher level given the responsibility of the office."

But former Young Council deputy mayor Ben Cooper said there are positives and negatives to increasing the wages of councillors.

"The positive would be that people would be able to come onto council full time and commit to what it takes to do the job properly," he said. 

"The negative would be that we'd have people doing it just for the money.

"If you are fully committed and dedicated, then being a councillor is a time-consuming job. However, the job should be done for the night reasons which are the advancements of the community, and I don't think anyone should go onto council for the money."

Council general manager Anthony McMahon said the reduction in the number of Councillors and Mayors from the previous totals of Boorowa, Harden and Young to the new Council, results in a net reduction of $211,640 in Councillor and Mayoral fees.