Councillors will have an additional $640 added to their salaries in the upcoming financial year.

Councillors will receive $18,380 for 2015/16, an increase of $640 from the $17,930 they received in 2014/15.

The mayor will gain an additional $40,090 on top of the councillor fee, a $980 raise from the current financial year.

Mayor Mathew Dickerson said the 3.6 per cent increase for councillors wasn’t huge.

Cr Dickerson said he would prefer it to be higher like in Queensland where councillors are paid enough for it to be a full-time job.

“They’ve realised in Queensland that if you want to increase the talent pool and have a broader range of people involved with council you need to pay them more.”

Cr Dickerson said being a councillor was a 24/7 job and he hoped the community would see the amount of work put in by those who do it.

“It’s an ongoing joke in our household, they joke that when I go to the supermarket to get some milk my children have to wait half an hour for breakfast,” he said.

“When councillors go to get bread or stop in to get the newspaper there’s always someone that wants to stop and have a chat.

“It’s a 24/7 job and it’s not like a director of a public company. When the director of Essential Energy walks down the street people don’t stop them and complain about their electricity prices.

“People expect you to be on top of everything, and we’re not complaining or we wouldn’t do it.”

Cr Dickerson said the councillors weren’t doing it for the money.

“Well, in Dubbo the councillors aren’t doing it for the money I don’t know about other places; they’re doing it for their passion for Dubbo.”

The Local Government Remuneration Tribunal determines the minimum and maximum fees for councillors.

For regional council such as Dubbo the councillor annual fee is set at a minimum of $8,330 and the maximum is $18,380.

The mayoral additional fee is a minimum of $17,740 and a maximum of $40,090.