Auckland City's 2004 budget and policy confirmed
Auckland City councillors confirmed
today their budget and spending policies for the 2004 financial year.
A special combined committee meeting of
all eight council committees discussed and finalised the draft annual
plan’s budget policy and other priorities for the financial year from
1 July 2003 to 30 June 2004. Council then adopted the annual plan.
Councillors considered public
submissions on the 2004 Draft Annual Plan before making their decisions.
“Public’s views have been taken
seriously with a number of major changes being added to the council’s
annual plan being a direct result from online, written and verbal
submissions,” says Councillor Douglas Armstrong, Auckland City
Council’s Combined Committees chairperson.
Councillors decided, after listening to
public submissions, to retain the current mobile library service and to
provide funding in the 2003/2004 budget for a heritage/character overlay
zone for the Ellerslie, Grey Lynn, Kingsland, Symonds Street, Valley
Road, Mt Eden and St Heliers, with additional funding to the Mt Eden and
St Heliers centre plans.
Funding changes form the draft annual
plan to the final annual plan include: centre plan funding for Mt Eden
and St Heliers $125,000 fund more effective mobile library service
$52,000 develop child and family policy and implementation plan $30,000
fund greening the city policy $75,000 Cliff Road toilets upgrade project
brought forward $100,000.
Councillor Armstrong says the
incredible growth Auckland city is experiencing presents not only
wonderful opportunities but also challenges.
“It is vital that the council invests
in Auckland city’s infrastructure to meet the needs of this and future
generations of residents and ratepayers. Confirming the annual plan
establishes how the council intends to meet those needs during the
period 1 July 2003 to 30 June 2004 and how much it will cost to achieve
it,” said Councillor Armstrong.
Auckland City will receive
$418.7million in revenue in the 2004 financial year. Nearly seventy per
cent ($289.6 million) of this will be from rates, with slightly more
than half being paid by non-residential ratepayers. It intends to spend
$399.8 million on operating expenses, such as keeping parks clean and
tidy, street lighting and supporting community events. Auckland City
intends to spend $211.8 million on costs associated with capital
expenditure, the building or renewal of the council’s assets.
The annual plan provides ways to deal
with the major issues facing Auckland city; transport, growth, streets
and rates, these include: making progress on the Auckland city section
of the region’s road and rail network. This includes working with
Manukau City Council and Transit New Zealand on both the eastern
corridor and connecting State Highway 20 through Mangere, Mt Roskill and
to the north-western motorway; working with Transit New Zealand on
upgrading spaghetti junction and Grafton gully; improving bus services;
studying the central business district (CBD) roads and passenger
transport and also completing Britomart and developing the surrounding
downtown area improving the city’s infrastructure e.g. the stormwater
network, improve the inner city waterfront, co-ordinating new
development at Tamaki Edge and Mt Wellington in response to population
growth and supporting economic development initiatives increasing
spending on footpath upgrades, formulating new policy and increase
spending to make streets in the CBD and suburban commercial centres more
pedestrian-friendly and developing a policy to make urban streets more
attractive limiting the total rates increase to the rate of inflation of
2.5 per cent.
The council will collect the 2.5 per
cent increase by increasing the waste collection charge. It will also
act on new rating legislation. To reduce the impact of the 2002 property
revaluation on some residential ratepayers, the council will replace
part of the value-based general rate with a uniform annual general
charge and alter the amount of rates paid by non-residential ratepayers
compared with residential ratepayers.
Councillor Armstrong said he was
pleased that the rates increase is likely to be amongst the lowest in
the economy and in addition all ratepayers would benefit significantly
form the 10 per cent prompt payment discount from Metrowater.
The final annual plan will be published
on 31 July 2003.
