There are a lot of things I would like to write about this month, like storm repairs, dynamic bus lanes, ferries, red cones and so on but everything is being dominated right now by the need for council to agree a balanced budget, one which will deal with the dreadful $395 million budget hole bequeathed to me by the current Ambassador to the UK.
I was elected on five policies, being Stop Wasting Money, Get control of the CCOs, Speed up our Traffic, Finish the Big Projects and Shift the Port and although there has been a fair bit of progress on these, the time spent on consultation over the budget is getting in the way.
The deal with the monstrous budget hole made worse by storm damage, proposed a range of unpalatable levers, including increased rates, severe cuts to services, increased debt and sale of the airport shares.
The Government doesn’t bother with consultation on their budget, but councils are forced to waste time and money over theirs. We spent a whole day listening to Local Boards deliver their views, most of which bore no relation to what the public consultation suggested.
Ponsonby News readers will be pleased to note that our local Waitematā Board joined Franklin, Orakei, Rodney and most of the northern local boards by offering up a balanced budget made up of a version of the four levers.
However, most of the others, especially in the Southern suburbs arrived with demands for no cuts to anything, small rate rises, no sale of the airport shares and no suggestions as to how to balance the budget as the law requires.
Indeed, the poorer the boards claimed to be, the stronger their opposition to the easiest solution which is to sell the airport shares. Unfortunately, your local councillor Mike Lee from Waiheke, who has many good attributes remains stuck in the Trotskyesque past and refuses to sell the airport shares.
As far as wasting money goes, owning the airport shares tops them all. Council has borrowed to own them and currently pay $100m in interest per year to own them in return for no dividends at all for the past three years and the prospect of very small ones in years to come as the airport attempts to fund another runway that will cost around $4bn.
The sale of these shares will allow for a softening of the proposed cuts to services but cuts to the operation of council and its CCOs are needed and will proceed.
As far as debt goes, council has borrowed its way into this mess by taking debt on when it was cheap, but as mortgage holders know debt is now expensive and getting more so, meaning this is not a good time at all to reach for the debt lever, especially as we face big bills for cost overruns in the City Rail Link and repairs to flood damaged council assets.
Hopefully by the time you read this I will have found sufficient councillors who understand enough about money to have got the budget over the line without ruinous rate rises. (Wayne Brown)
www.facebook.com/WayneBrown4Auckland
#ponsonbynews #iloveponsonby #ponsonby #auckland #aucklandshippestrip #onlyponsonby #ponsonbyroad #Greylynn #freemansbay #westmere #ponsonby #hernebay #stmarysbay #archhill #coxsbay #westernsprings #mayorwaynebrown
29 May 2023