Moncton Mayor George LeBlanc voted against the 2.6 per cent wage hike for city administrators. (CBC)

Moncton taxpayers will pay city administrators an additional 2.6 per cent after council voted to bump up their pay and travel expenses on Monday night.

Moncton has about 55 non-unionized city managers and almost half of those bureaucrats are paid more than $100,000 a year.

The City has the largest number of civil servants earning more than $100,000 of the province's large cities, documents recently obtained by CBC News through a Right to Information request show.

Moncton council hired a consultant recently to examine city salaries. The report showed that most Moncton administrators make, on average, what similar managers in Atlantic Canada make.

But the extra benefits provided by the city are much more generous than other employers, the report found.

On Monday, council voted to boost wages by 2.6 per cent and increase what staff can claim for meals on the road. The increases are significantly higher than what provincial civil servants can claim.

Mayor George LeBlanc and two city councillors opposed the wage bump and increase in expenses.

Coun. Brian Hicks said Codiac Transpo bus drivers only received a 1.7 per cent pay hike after their lengthy lockout so it is tough to justify such an increase for non-unionized workers.

“We can't be asking some of the other unions to take 1.7 [per cent wage increases] or whatever when we're giving other employees 2.6 per cent,” he said.

“It's far too rich and I won't be supporting it.”

Coun. Daniel Bourgeois pointed to the consultant’s study that showed the benefits surpass other municipal officials in the region. He said the report found the city was "very generous, over generous compared to the average employer."

Bourgeois said he wanted to know if any steps had been taken to correct that.

“My own memory says that year after year we bump up the salary, but we haven't been tackling the other side of the issue,” Bourgeois said.

“The flip side, which is we're doing the good positive thing, but we're not doing the good negative thing.”

None of the councillors who voted in favour of the pay and benefit increases spoke out on why they were necessary.