By Andrew Bydder, Hamilton City Councillor
Hamilton City Council’s Long-term Plan – what you need to know.
Opium and OPM sound the same, and both are dangerous, highly addictive drugs. OPM, which stands for Other People’s Money, affects mental function resulting in hallucinations that every problem can be solved simply by taking more money from ratepayers. This is known as ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul’ – which is not a real solution because all it does is transfer the problem from one person to another.
The Long-term Plan is the council’s budget for the next ten years. It is used to set the rates and debt to cover all the planned spending. It is reviewed every three years, which is the most important council decision for each election term. The first week of June saw three days of debate and negotiation that proved Hamilton City Councillors are sharply divided into two factions.
Sadly, OPM continues to infect the larger faction of eight spenders, whose fix now requires an additional 16.5% increase in rates next year to fuel their habit.
This may be down from the 19.9% previously proposed (no surprises, the rates are always cut back to look good in an election year), but there is much worse to come. The rates rise plan is 54% over three years, and nearly 100% over five years.
The smaller faction of six savers (Ewan Wilson, Geoff Taylor, Andrew Bydder, Tim MacIndoe, Mark Donovan, and Emma Pike) tried to wean the council off OPM by pushing for a meagre 7.5% cut in staff, which added up to $100 million in savings over 10 years. The public strongly supported this measure in feedback.
Mayor Paula Southgate and Deputy Mayor O’Leary overturned the public support and slashed the savings to just $24 million. They were joined by spenders Louise Hutt, Maxine Van Oosten, Kesh Naidoo-Rauf, Anna Casey-Cox, Moko Tauriki, and Sarah Thomson, who went on to increase their use of OPM by adding numerous extra sums to the budget.
As a result, even the massive rates increase is not enough to cover the council’s bills. Every household budget understands the importance of making sure income covers expenses. For councils, breaking even is known as ‘Balancing the books. Hamilton is not planning on doing this for three years. The addiction to OPM is so powerful that the spending faction would rather borrow more money than break even.
This sees the council’s debt rising from the current $1 billion to $2.5 billion in 10 years. As that is the end of the Long-term Plan, there is no suggestion of any plan to repay the debt. For the OPM addicts, that simply means it is SEP – Somebody Else’s Problem.
You, dear reader, are the OTHER PEOPLE of OPM, and the SOMEBODY ELSE of SEP. You are important. In October next year there will be another election. You will have a clear choice between the two factions. There will be some new candidates in the Saver faction, and a clear plan to save ratepayers. If the Savers get two more councillors, then they have the majority and will be able to put the council into Rehab.
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Consultation for the Hamilton City Council Long-term Plan 2024-2034
