1 November 2024. As the end of the year approaches, how is Auckland Council performing under Mayor Wayne Brown and his election promise to “Fix Auckland”?
Financially the Auckland Council Group performed better than it has under previous Mayors. Particularly with the additional challenges from last year’s weather events.
Auckland has had a large cost of living impact – with high inflation and interest rates affecting the daily lives of many residents and ratepayers.
However, the big financial positive is that Auckland Council’s costs are now getting under control. Council is back-on-track in terms of being in a good position to tackle some of the bigger physical and financial challenges Auckland has put off for too long.
These include;
This included repaying debt from the proceeds of selling poorly-performing airport shares, and also making sure Auckland’s port is making a profit for ratepayers.
Underpinning this progress, is that council staff and management has taken on board Mayor Brown’s determination for there to be a laser-like focus to stop wasting money. He is not there yet, but he has made a good start within the bureaucracy, including dramatically cutting-out the upper management layer.
The Mayor is particularly pleased to see this layer of bureaucracy and duplication removed. This goes hand-in-hand with moves to find savings and reining in operating spending, while not compromising the activities and services the Council provide to Aucklanders.
At the beginning of the financial year, Council faced a fragile future with a potential budget hole.
But it has been a good year for the Mayor, and ratepayers, because he has stemmed an incoming financial tide.
Additionally he has done a deal to get extra money for Auckland for weather recovery and resilience from central government. He has also put Council in a stronger financial position for the future with the establishment of the “Future fund” to mitigate rates rises for Aucklanders if hit by another major weather bomb.
Mayor Brown feels he has made good inroads with the new government, looking at the ways to fund transport and water infrastructure.
All-in-all, not a bad effort by Mayor Brown during his first term – but of course, there’s more to do and he will need to continue to work hard to fix Auckland, and deliver more for the Rodney ward working with myself, the Rodney Local Board, and our local resident and ratepayer groups.