Is yoga core business? Council seems to think so
After a year of debating to figure out how Auckland Council can financially balance its books, the mayor’s 10-year budget proposal will be that a 5 per cent rates increase is required, public assets sold, council debt levels increased, and savings made by cutting or reducing council services.
The budget proposes to increase taxes, borrow more and spend more.
What has frustrated me the most as a councillor has been many repeated attempts to have council define “core business” to allow the debate to focus on trimming back on non-core services.
By way of example, Aucklanders’ rates are being used to pay for yoga classes, daycare centres, camping grounds, marinas, golf courses and other services which should be run by private enterprises. They are not core council business. They should not be ratepayer-funded.
The mayor and some of my councillor colleagues have disagreed with me. Their argument has been that local body legislation requires councils to promote social, economic, environmental and cultural outcomes for all Aucklanders.
However, Auckland Council cannot afford to be all things to all people. In what has been an unprecedented year, council needs to peel back services to prioritise the essentials and to make the tough calls about what services are nice-to-haves. This would negate the need for increasing debt, selling assets or ramping up rates.
When eight legacy councils were amalgamated into the Super City 10 years ago, with the promise of fewer staff and greater efficiencies, a crucial step was overlooked, which needs to be corrected.
Each of the different councils offered an array of different services but no filter was applied to determine whether all of the services were appropriate to be provided by the newly formed Auckland Council. A cutting back to provide core services in a cost-efficient way never happened, so staff costs have remained entrenched.
The chickens have now well and truly come home to roost with Auckland Council having experienced a significant downturn in revenue due to Covid-19, primarily from its reduction in payouts from Auckland Airport and the Ports of Auckland. Accordingly, the council must urgently reduce its spending to balance the books. The question is, will the correct spending cuts be made?
Because the council has failed to seize the opportunity to debate and openly reexamine its primary purpose at a time of experiencing extreme financial hardship, Auckland’s residents and ratepayers will be hit hard with loss of public amenities, more debt, cut services and more taxes.
It is disheartening that the numerous requests to examine what council core business should be were repeatedly dismissed. The chance was squandered for Auckland’s elected leaders to truly reform Auckland Council into how it should have been operating from day one.
In order to maintain routine services the mayor is proposing an average general rates increase of 5 per cent for this year, up from the 3.5 per cent he previously promised. Echoing his concerns, two local boards, Rodney and Waitemata¯, have proposed even higher rate increases of between 8 per cent and 12 per cent.
These increases seem counter-intuitive when the economy is in recovery mode and households are struggling.
What is required is for the mayor’s current self-sponsored internal costsaving working parties to be replaced by a “razor squad” of competent external people who have no allegiance to Auckland Council. They should be given the authority to go through all council operations and cut 10 per cent of unnecessary spending. This rules out elected officials, staff and current or past consultants being part the exercise.
Instead, what is likely to happen is core services that communities truly value will be cut while non-core services will continue unchallenged. Ratepayers don’t want to be continually taxed to prop up increasing council debt and spending. They want significant change in the way Auckland is run.
Auckland Council received $129 million from the regional fuel tax but only spent $89m in the first year of collections on fixing traffic congestion — a core service. Last year, Auckland Council received $148m and spent even less at $79m. So what’s happened to the unspent $109 million?
Ratepayers may be shocked to learn the council can, in turn, use the unspent transport money on its own daily operational expenses or for financing its ballooning debt.
I cannot emphasise enough the need for us all to keep a close eye on council’s books.