Auckland Council has financial luxuries that crisis-hit households can only dream about, says Jo Holmes. Photo / Michael Craig
Auckland Council has financial luxuries that crisis-hit households can only dream about, says Jo Holmes. Photo / Michael Craig
COMMENT
Recent opinion columns paint a dire picture of Auckland Council's financial situation.
Apparently, if we don't hike rates, Albert Park will become a bramble jungle; kapa haka groups will be forced to busk on the street; the designer of New Lynn's hanging phallus will have to take up atrade.
More concerningly, the council threatens in its emergency budget to cut more vital spending, such as road safety. The strategy is apparently to guilt-trip Aucklanders into supporting higher rates, regardless of current economic pains.
And yet, the council has financial luxuries that crisis-hit Auckland households could only dream of.
Of its 12,000-odd staff, 2831 are paid salaries higher than $100,000. The Council's response to Covid-19 pressures has been to propose voluntary pay cuts, of just 5-10 per cent, for just six months, and only for those staff paid over $100,000.
These are not the actions of a poverty-stricken organisation.
Pay cuts at council could easily go harder, deeper, and longer. They could reflect the extraordinary pressures faced by the ratepayers who fund those salaries, many of whom have lost their livelihoods entirely.
In other areas, the council has been more willing to make sacrifices: a $10 million cut to major events, for example, means some ratepayer-funded festivals and concerts will be put on hold. But the ratepayer-funded subsidies for the America's Cup are still going ahead. So is APEC.
Discretionary funding for local boards, which maintain parks and give grants to community groups and local events, is being cut by just 10 per cent.
And construction of the City Rail Link forges ahead, costing ratepayers $395 million in 2020/21 alone – a monument to sunk costs and stubborn political vanity.
When approved the City Rail Link was originally pitched to cost $2.4 billion with a questionable cost-benefit ratio. Now it's ballooned to $4.4 billion, and well-informed construction industry insiders say that even that is likely to increase.
Contrast these spending plans with those of private organisations across the Super City, which face collapsed revenue and have soberly responded by slashing staff and cancelling operations.
In short, Auckland Council cries poverty while refusing to make sacrifices in line with those of us who pay its bills.
As a result, in its official submission form, the council tells ratepayers to choose between a rate hike of 3.5 per cent, 2.5 per cent, or an "I don't know" option. The message seems to be that if you oppose a rate hike you must be uninformed.
Inevitably, ratepayers will choose the lower 2.5 per cent option and Phil Goff will claim this as proof the public supports a rate hike. That is an insulting manipulation of the consultation process.
The council's consultation material justifies a rate hike for the sake of "economic and cultural development".
If the council bothered to check with an economist, it would learn that increasing taxes is a disastrous way to drive economic recovery. You do not develop a city by impoverishing the people who keep it running.
Even our centre-left prime minister has signalled that now is the time to give taxpayers a break. How has our mayor, a former Labour Party leader, missed the memo?
You would be hard-pressed to fund a crueller tax to increase than council rates: rates show no mercy for those who have lost incomes due to Covid-19. Unlike income taxes, rates apply regardless of a household's actual earnings.
Local councils with smaller balance sheets and less flexibility, from Dunedin to Kawerau, have this year committed to freezing rates.
Auckland councillors must revisit the laughable budget "options" for consultation and put real rates relief back on the table.
• Jo Holmes is the spokesperson for the Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance which encourages ratepayers to submit on the Auckand Council's 'Emergency Budget' via the alliance website.
* This column previously referred to Cornwall Park, which is managed by the Cornwall Park Trust Board and not maintained by Auckland Council.
