Mayor Len Brown comes in under budget

Len Brown has something to celebrate. Photo / Getty

Auckland Mayor Len Brown spent $3.73 million running the mayoral office in the past financial year, 10 per cent less than the allowable budget of $4.152 million.

Mr Brown's office today pro-actively released details about his office spend following an Official Information Act request from councillor Cameron Brewer.

The figures show the mayoral office spent $2.32 million on salaries for 21 fulltime and part-time staff - an average of about $110,000 per mayoral staffer.

Mr Brown spent $589,000 on consultants and contractors, but no details were given.

The travel bill was $44,000 and a further $13,000 was spent on cellphones.

There are four purchasing cards in the mayoral office but no credit cards. Mr Brown does not have a credit card.

Spending on P-cards was $655.81 in the 2014-2015 financial year, down from $1309.02 in the previous year.

The cost of running the mayor's Holden Calais V6 car was $25,432, but this comes out of the mayoral salary.

The response noted that $421,000 on last year's spend went towards a wide-ranging port review, prompted by a long-running Herald campaign to stop further port expansion into the Waitemata Harbour, and a victory in the High Court by Urban Auckland, a body of architects and urban design professionals, to stop two wharf extensions by Ports of Auckland.

The figures provided to Mr Brewer also show Mr Brown led two international business and economic delegations to China and the United States during the year at a total cost of $26,142. The mayor's domestic travel bill was $6387.

Under legislation, the mayoral budget is set at 0.2 per cent of the council operational budget. Mr Brown has chosen this to mean 0.2 per cent of the council budget, not 0.2 per cent of the wider council and council-controlled organisations budgets.

Mr Brewer said Mr Brown's mayoral office budget might be under a set budget, "but in key categories his costs are up on last year, when other council departments and core services have faced cuts".

"For example staff salaries are up, consultants and contractor costs are up an extra $162,000 to $589,000, and office travel is up by another $13,000 to $44,000.

"Ratepayers will rightly wonder whether employing over 20 people and spending nearly $4 million every year had helped the Mayor. In most people's eyes the results are not a good return on ratepayers investment," Mr Brewer said.