Auckland Council is reaching the limit of what they can reasonably extract from Aucklanders pockets.
The Auckland Council’s 10 Year Budget and 30 Year Plan is a disappointing read. The problems are listed (we all know what they are) followed by predictions of how much money will be needed to address each one, almost always in the billions. The 10 Year Budget sees “underinvestment in infrastructure over decades as a core issue”. No one would disagree with that. The authors then say “To address the problems we need to identify new funding sources as we are at the limit of what we can sustainably borrow”.
So Auckland Council has accumulated $8.7 billion of debt at the same time there was ‘underinvestment in infrastructure’. This begs the question, where did that money go?
IT WAS WASTED, on constant restructuring, never-ending planning, poor decision-making, endless reviews and growth in staff wages and salaries which well outstrips private sector increases. There is no sign that Auckland Council bureaucrats are improving this situation, amalgamation has not brought the efficiencies promised and the Council Controlled Organisation ‘model’ has destroyed interdepartmental cooperation. This must be fixed or the money raised from the following taxes, will just go to waste as well;
• 2.5% Rate increase (then 3.5% for every year after that and of course there’s a compounding effect)
• A Rate increase due to property valuation increases
• A petrol tax
• A water tax
• An environmental tax
• An accommodation tax (this is an interesting one, targeting online providers such as Airbnb hosts)
• And this does not include all the unspoken increases to Council user pays charges.
But at least Councils 270% of revenue debt ceiling, means we won’t continue borrowing on behalf of our children and grandchildren. But then there’s this statement “Council debt is projected to grow by $3.9 billion over the next 10 years, from $8.7 billion in June 2018 to $12.6 billion by June 2028 and we are now reaching the limits of what we can responsibly borrow”.
Of course, increased taxes means increased revenue, so now we can again increase the amount of money borrowed. Silly me, and I had to read to the end of the document to realise that.
What Auckland Council is reaching, is the limit to what they can reasonably extract from Aucklanders pockets. Yes Auckland is growing rapidly, yes there is a boom in activity, but there is no boom in margins, partly caused by Auckland Council wasting billions of dollars. Get your house in order Auckland Council, before you gouge what money is left from our pockets.
