Board community budget set to be slashed

Cuts of $810,000 from a $1,345,000 funding pool for community events and groups need be found by the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board.

“It’s going to hurt,” says board chair Toni van Tonder as crunch time looms for board members to prioritise spending to meet Auckland Council budget cuts signalled late last year. Options range from re-jigging spending across community groups to deciding what is expendable altogether.

The board briefed the Devonport Peninsula Trust and other groups last week, leaving them grappling with the extent of the impact locally.

Van Tonder said board members were working on best and worst-case scenarios under the mayor’s draft budget proposals. The community needed to be aware of the likely impact on what support the board could offer and to join the board in making submissions to the council seeking a fairer allocation of funding for the area.

Feedback is open from late February to late March.

North Shore ward councillor Richard Hills, who chairs the council’s Planning, Environ- ment and Parks Committee, is also urging the public to have its say.

While the council has talked about boards across the city losing 5 per cent of funding, the true figure to be slashed from the board’s discretionary or Locally Driven Initiatives (LDI) money for Devonport-Takapuna is nearer to 60 per cent. This is due to historic local-body differences in how community funding is allocated, with the North Shore more often funding groups, such as community trusts, to deliver services (for example children’s play sessions), rather than council providing services direct as happens across much of Auckland.

On top of the LDI cuts come region-wide reductions, impacting the money available for arts facilities, environmental efforts, venues, and other city services. As part of this, libraries might be closed one day a week, van Tonder told the Flagstaff.

A “slow-mow” policy also meant reserves would be tended to less often.

Locally, the board has been instructed that LDI cuts need to be “sustainable”, meaning they are expected to be ongoing, rather than a one-off. The draft budget was drawn up before recent flooding, so does not cover costs related to the recovery.

Van Tonder said the board would review public feedback after council collated it and would then submit more of its own. It would continue to talk to groups it currently supports, including business associations that host town centre events.

The board has already put a case to the council that Devonport-Takapuna is being particularly hard hit, which took Mayor Wayne Brown by surprise. But getting the council to recognise and want to rectify differing approaches to LDI allocation by a deadline of next week, ahead of the public consultation process, may prove a challenge.

At its meeting this week, the board was expected to sign off on council staff organising a public ‘Have Your Say’ session in Takapuna next month. This is set for Tuesday 21 March from 5pm to 8pm at the board offices at 1 The Strand. Submissions close on 28 March.

A finalised budget document is required to be approved by the council’s governing body by June, for the start of the 2023-24 financial year in July.