Council has more than eleven and a half thousand staff – eleven and a half thousand people you have to pay for. Two thousand of those happy folk earn more than one hundred thousand dollars a year.
We have more people working for the council now than we did before we all amalgamated.
Does it surprise you that Auckland Council staff costs are sixty three million dollars over budget this last year? Again – Where is the oversight? Where is their self-control? Where is the management?
Do you think you’re getting a fair return on that kind of outlay? I don’t.
What’s wrong with merging the different back office functions of the Council and all the CCO’s into one single administration unit for start. That would cut costs.
I’ve talked to dozens of business owners and developers in this town … people who added billions to the city’s worth and their common complaint is that the left hand of the council doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. They often don’t know who to talk to in the council to get their business done – and worse, the council doesn’t know either.
We need a zero based restructuring of council staff and their salaries – start from the top down – get it done right, get the numbers right, and cut the feather-bedding, the fat cats and their perks. We ratepayers are sick of being bled to pay for it.