KEY POINTS:
Higher zoo charges for children and leaving dirt to pile up on the streets of Remuera and St Heliers are among the latest cost-cutting measures being considered by Mayor John Banks and Citizens & Ratepayers.
C&R have requested reports on zoo charges and street cleaning to keep rates at 4.8 per cent this year, the council's rate of inflation.
But while the higher zoo charges would save $55,000 from this year's $590 million budget, finance committee chairman Doug Armstrong yesterday said C&R had not requested any reports on the burgeoning cost of consultants.
Between 2006 and 2007 spending on consultants blew out by 56 per cent, from $26.2 million to $40.8 million. Last week, the Herald reported that the giant accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers was paid $60,000 for giving the council advice on the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Auckland.
Asked if ratepayers would prefer holding the existing $9 children's admission price to the zoo at a cost of $55,000 or paying consultants such as PricewaterhouseCoopers $60,000 for advice, Mr Armstrong said consultants should not have been used in that case.
C&R is also considering scrapping plans for additional cleaners with trolleys at the town centres of Remuera, St Heliers, Mission Bay, Otahuhu, Onehunga, Glen Innes, Panmure and Ellerslie that, officers say, would make these areas "less clean" from the middle of the day. Dirt would pile up through the afternoon and into the evening until the existing cleaning service at night. This would save $400,000 a year.
Another street-cleaning project under threat is a new level of more environmentally sustainable footpath cleaning for the upgraded Queen St, central business district and 38 other centres planned to begin in September at a cost of $3.2 million in the first year.
The new service would use mechanical sweepers allowing greater areas to be cleaned more quickly and to a higher standard. Chewing gum, with up to 20 pieces per square metre in places, would be regularly removed.
Again, the CBD and commercial centres would become "increasingly less clean" and could lead to potential washing pollutants getting into the storm-water network, say officers.
Mr Armstrong said ratepayers should judge C&R on the result of trimming a proposed rates increase of 10.2 per cent to 4.8 per cent.
"We have got to look at big items. We have got to look at small items. We have got to look at capital items."
C&R, he said, was viewing every line of council spending with a razor. It aimed to prune spending on consultants, including $8.4 million spent on outside lawyers.
Mr Armstrong said the right-wing political ticket had not commissioned any specific reports addressing spending on consultants, saying the spending would come down as a result of pruning the budget and capital spending.
When in opposition last term, Mr Armstrong pushed for chief executive David Rankin to find $20 million savings in operating costs through efficiency gains. He has not followed this up now that he controls the council purse strings.
