Further budget blow-out frustrates Rodney Local Board

Frustrated and grumpy – that was how Rodney Local Board chair Brent Bailey said he felt after Auckland Council announced on May 10 that its budget deficit had plummeted further, from $295 million to $325 million.

In unfortunate timing, the news came out the same day that the Board was voting on its annual budget feedback and workshopping how changes would affect its long-term plan, all of which had been based on the previous deficit figure. Bailey said it was frustrating that months of work by board members and staff to work out where spending could be maintained or cut back would almost certainly need to be carried out again.

“All the work we’ve done in the last few months will probably have to be reviewed,” he said.

“Something has got to change and Rodney Local Board may have to revisit our feedback and we may end up with reductions in key service levels, and I’m not sure if that even will get us back in front of the deficit.”

He said while everyone had known there would be a “storm-related hangover” from the cost of dealing with floods and Cyclone Gabrielle, there were more basic issues stymieing council and its ability to function efficiently.

“Part of the fundamental problem council faces is because of central government legislative changes that give us additional responsibilities, to do with things like urban development, freshwater standards and biosecurity,” he said.

“We’re having to provide feedback to central government all the time, which means no one at council is doing any work for us while they’re dealing with central government issues.”

He cited the revised Resource Management Act as a prime example of something diverting money and resources away from core council business.

“The RMA has taken us 20 years to implement and produce an effective planning framework and now they want to move the goalposts, and ratepayers end up paying for that,” Bailey said. “Central government doesn’t want voters saying you’re not dealing with things like climate change, or diversity, so they hand it over to council and ratepayers have to pay.”

Bailey said all the Board could do for now was wait to hear what needed to happen next.

“We’ll be waiting for the Mayor and governing body to direct us, we’re still working through the process and still in the workflow we started months ago,” he said.

Feedback from Rodney and all Local Boards was presented to the governing body last Wednesday, May 17.

Key budget feedback voted on by Rodney Local Board members included:

Did not support:

• maintaining the currently reduced number of public transport services

• reducing regional services such as community, education, arts and culture programmes, regional events and other social service activities

• reducing local board-funded activities to save $16 million

• reducing regional contestable grants

• increasing council debt by $75 million

• reducing the Natural Environment and Water Quality Targeted Rates

• changing which bus services were funded by the Climate Action Targeted Rate

• the proposed amendment to Community Occupancy Guidelines and charges

Did support:

• the sale of council’s shares in Auckland Airport

• a 1% rate increase (above the proposed 4.66%), which would remove the need to cut local board funding

• a further 1% rate increase for a storm response fund to increase the resilience of rural and vulnerable communities

• the introduction of a one-off fee for residents wishing to change bin sizes

• extending the food scraps targeted rate to new urban areas

• an increase to fees for the pool fencing compliance targeted rate

• the review of fees for councilmanaged pool and leisure facilities

• the significant increases in road maintenance and renewals in Auckland Transport’s (AT) draft annual budget

Board members expressed concern that Waka Kotahi may remove subsidies for AT road maintenance and renewals in favour of greater investments in state highways, and requested that local contractors be used for council work.

They also requested increased regional civil defence budgets to improve local community emergency resilience and advocated for the funding of flood mitigation work in areas where homes and main transport routes were continuously being flooded.