On The Tiles- Local Edition: Behind the spectacle and excitement of council budgets

A Rotorua Lakes Council meeting earlier this year. Photo / Andrew Warner

Getting an annual budget across the line is no easy task for mayors around the country, with councillors acting as both their caucus and opposition, not to mention the public consultation process.

Anticipation is building for Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s 2023 budget following his announcement it will be delivered on May 18, but there’s a case to be made that local government budgets are just as captivating.

The annual plan process is well underway with Auckland Council facing an almost $300 million shortfall. Auckland Council’s budget proposes to sell the council’s shares in Auckland International Airport, cut services, raise fees, cancel public events and boost disaster-response spending. Residential rates will rise by a net average of 5.66 per cent.

Christchurch City Council is looking at a similar rates increase of 5.58 per cent.

Meanwhile, Wellington City Council’s proposed rates increase is more than double that. The council has put a 12.3 per cent rates increase out for consultation.

Talking to Georgina Campbell on On the Tiles - Local Edition, the Herald’s politics podcast, Chamanthie Sinhalage-Fonseka said mayors lead the direction of budgets and often go through them line-by-line with senior council officers before the draft version is tabled.

Sinhalage-Fonseka has worked in the offices of both the Hamilton and Wellington mayors. She is currently a senior consultant at Baldwin Boyle Group and a Heart of the City board member.

Although mayors have special responsibilities when it comes to putting together a council budget, they are still just one vote around the table.

Councils get to vote on a draft budget before it is put out for consultation. They also get to vote on the final version of the budget.

Sinhalage-Fonseka said the mayor’s office would ideally have been in talks with councillors well before any voting.

“The last thing you want as a mayor is to put up a budget that’s going to get voted down, so you want to put something up that’s going to pass muster with your councillors, which means that councillors need to feel they are a part of the process.

“You want to get a social licence or political licence to be able to get a budget through.”

Mayors should not presume to have a constant majority around the council table and need to negotiate with councillors so there are no surprises, Sinhalage-Fonseka said.

Listen to the full podcast of On the Tiles - Local Edition to hear more about the horse-trading, exactly when the fun begins, and why one woman has taken to mowing council lawns herself.

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