“It has to plug that. It’s required by law not to have a deficit budget, so it’s got to balance the books,” says Wilson.
“The status quo is not an option. A whole lot of changes have to be made to income and to spending – and that’s why this has become a more important budget than we would normally see.”
While these annual budget cuts are necessary under these circumstances, Wilson warns that they could have an impact extending well beyond a single year.
“There’s an adage in business that once you lay off staff, those positions are never going to be filled again,” says Wilson.
“When you stop doing something, you never start again. Cuts are cuts – however they’re presented, however temporary you think they are. Cuts are almost always final.”
This is important as the range of cuts proposed here is more extensive than we’ve seen before.
Adding further weight to this concern is that this budget serves as a precursor to the council’s longer-term decision-making.
“This budget will set the benchmark or the baseline for the 10-year budget operation that will start later this year,” says Wilson.
If the council is able to successfully cut the budget in the way it intends, this will serve as the basis to maintain the status quo or keep reducing costs in the future.
“They won’t be saying: ‘How do we build it up?’ That’s just not how budgets work,” Wilson says.
So how extensive will these cuts be? Who will be worst affected by the changes? What does this mean for Auckland’s longer-term plans? What is the vision for a city amid budget cuts? And where does climate change fit into these cost pressures?
Listen to the full episode of The Front Page podcast to hear Simon Wilson explain the decisions that will shape our largest city for years to come.
