Just before the meeting closed, councillor Lotu Fuli put forward an amendment to the budget to delay any sale of the airport shares until next year's 10-year budget - holding household rates to 6.8 per cent and increasing debt from $100 million in Brown's budget proposal to $160m.
Auckland councillors have broken up from an all-day meeting on Mayor Wayne Brown's controversial budget without making any decision on a partial sale of Auckland Airport shares and other issues.
Brown closed the meeting at 5pm for councillors to resume business in the Auckland Town Hall at 10am tomorrow.
“This is a very hard budget and I want to ensure that we take our time to work through the process properly," says Mayor Brown.
"I have always said it may take a couple of days of constructive debate. There is no issue with that, we are simply adjourning to another day.
“While there remains some disagreement about the appropriate balance of levers, I am confident that we will finalise the budget before the statutory deadline of 30 June.
“I want to thank councillors and staff for their hard work and professionalism. We all want what is best for Auckland and ultimately that will guide our decision.”
Join us for further coverage from 10am tomorrow.
Councillor Darby says he's not at all comfortable with the mayor's proposal for part sale of shares (twice what he'd accept): It's far from clear if Wayne Brown has the numbers yet.
Councillor Greg Sayers asked about the $4m cut to local boards: “Some of the boards get hit a bit more harder by that, can you answer how that will be spread more equitably?”
Brown's response: Most of the local boards came up with the $4m savings themselves.
Councillor Fuli said cuts to her local board would hit important community services.
“People said these were services that were really important to us and core to council,” she said.
Brown said it was a consequence of not selling the airport shares in full: “You can’t have your cake and eat it.”
Fuli mentioned how staff had recommended against a partial sale of airport shares previously - but Brown said council officers hadn’t and said it wouldn’t be as ideal as a full sale.
The latest proposal now means that the $200m proposed to be set aside from a full sale of the airport shares for fixing and finishing community infrastructure projects will not proceed.
Lotu Fuli: Staff have always advised against a partial sale so what do they think now?
Brown: I think they said it wouldn't be as valuable.
CFO Gudsell: That's correct, not as many benefits but not for us to say if you should or shouldn't do it
The big surprise is that while many/most councillors seemed this morning to be ready to take on more debt, that is not included in the proposal now.
Council will still be taking on $80m in new debt, plus another $20m specifically for flood response. This was in the mayor's "final" proposal they started the day with.
1) Sell 8 per cent of 18 per cent in Auckland Airport shareholding.
2) Raise average residential rates from 6.7 per cent to 7.7 per cent.
3) Cut local board discretionary funds by $4m.
4) The Kauri Kids funding remains cut, but local boards can reinstate it in their areas, if they wish, from their existing funding.
5) The CEO has been asked to find another $5m in cuts, but it's not clear yet what the thinking behind this is (CEO Jim Stabback: "I don't have a plan for the realisation of that yet... We'll have to work at that during the year").
There are some other elements about longer term funding (e.g. for CABs) that will be thrashed out in the 10-year-plan, which gets prepared later this year.
Wayne Brown said he doubted the budget would stand or fall on any issues on CAB funding.
Councillor Daniel Newman has asked about Citizens Advice Bureau cash reserves.
Wayne Brown has reopened the meeting after giving councillors time to chew over his latest proposal.
The break went beyond the originally given 10 minutes.
After about 26 minutes, Brown reconvened the meeting: “I’m going to dare to resume, and you’re welcome to ask questions,” he told councillors.