Viewpoint – Value for money questioned

Well, one significant difference is that we can see exactly what “bang-for-bucks” we are getting from our personal budget. With the Council we can’t. So let’s have a look at what needs to change so that we know what value we get for our rates.

The rate take from the entire Hibiscus local board area will increase from $94.9 million to $95.5 million this year.

How much of this rate take will we get back?  Councillors should vote to have the breakdown of how much of people’s rates are being spent back into Local Board areas and make that information publicly available.Council has also added a new transport tax to our rate bill. This will collect, from just our area, an additional $5.24 million annually.So the second change needed is for Council’s treasury to publicly account for how all of the $5.24 million will be spent. How much will be spent on local transport needs such as roads, park ‘n’ rides, footpaths and pedestrian crossings or will it be used to service the debt of the city rail link? Where exactly is all that money going?

Similarly, Watercare will be borrowing over $45 million during the next five years for local projects. That’s an average of $9 million a year they will borrow to build new water systems. However, these borrowings are not serviced from our rates. They are repaid from the additional water rates we get charged. The income projection is these water charges will total $29 million this year for our area. Here’s the point, if the annual cost to repay a $9 million loan (using 6 percent over 30 years) is around $650,000 a year, and we are paying $29 million a year, where is the remaining $28.3 million of our water rates going? Down the drain?

So the third change that is required is for all Council Controlled Organisations (Auckland Transport, Watercare, etc) to provide detailed reports of their monthly operational expenditure. They are currently not required to do this.

Hence, there is no way Councillors, or ratepayers, have any idea how these Council organisations are spending our money on their daily running costs.Action these suggested governance changes along with my previously expressed ideas about Council getting back to its core business; returning to “normal” maintenance standards; increasing productivity; reducing high compliance costs; reducing rather than increasing borrowings; using local contractors; supporting local volunteers; reining in the wage bill, and appointing an Independent Performance Auditor to report on Council’s performance – then we might truly know what bang we are getting for our bucks.