Labour has revealed that the number of council staff on salaries of at least £60K more than quadrupled under the previous Liberal Democrat administration.
It comes after the Lib Dems criticised the Labour-run council over their plans to reduce the number of senior officer roles.
The Labour administration has proposed replacing five director-level jobs with three, to save £259K.
In response, the Lib Dem and Conservative said that any savings would be eaten up by things like redundancy payments and pensions.
They also criticised another “management reshuffle” and the fact that Labour was not bringing back the chief executive role, as promised.
Today Labour branded that as “political opportunism”.
And deputy council leader Pete Kilbane revealed there had been a huge hike in staff employed on top salaries during the Lib Dem administration, from May 2019 to May 2023.
Cllr Kilbane said: “Under the old Liberal Democrat administration, the number of senior officers earning £60,000 or more increased from 18 to 75, with the pay bill increasing from £1.8m to £5.5m.
“We are not going to follow their lesson of saying one thing and doing another. We said we’d review senior staff and reduce costs and that’s exactly what this decision achieves.”
Labour’s executive member for finance Cllr Katie Lomas said: “After the bungling and huge cost from the old Liberal Democrat administration over the removal of the former chief executive, and its pledge to spend less but ending up spending more on senior management, following their example seems like a fast track to higher costs to the taxpayer and legal action being taken against the council.
“And York’s Conservative Group Leader is criticising these savings without saying if he supports them.
“Even if the two main opposition parties don’t support these proposals, we’ve been clear savings will have to come at all levels of the organisation to help balance the books.
“We’ve also been clear from day one we will do things properly, legally and take the difficult decisions required to stabilise the council’s finances.”