Rodney Hide
28 September, 2010
New Auckland Council Saves Ratepayers $91 Million In Wages

Aucklanders should be very pleased at the announcement that, from 1 July 2012, the annual salary bill of the new Auckland Council will fall to $513 million - saving ratepayers a total of $91 million per annum, Minister of Local Government Hon Rodney Hide said today.

"This is a great result for the people of Auckland and I would like to acknowledge the hard work that the Auckland Transition Agency (ATA) - and in particular ATA Executive Chairman Mark Ford - has done to get to this stage," Mr Hide said.

"The ATA has worked closely with the Auckland Councils to manage the transition to the new structure which will reduce the number of staff working for the current councils and their subsidiaries by a total of 1,523 employees - or approximately 16 percent.

"The ATA has done its best to ensure that disruption to staff was minimal and that Auckland ratepayers' level of exposure to redundancy payments was reduced. The one-off costs of general staff redundancy payments are estimated to be in the range of $15 million to $20 million. I would note that the ATA has not at this stage included redundancy payments for the CEOs of the councils.

"It's great to be able to deliver these on-going savings to ratepayers and to show the efficiency gains to be made from the new Auckland Council. The onus will now be on the elected members of the new Auckland Council to ensure that these savings are enduring," Mr Hide said

ENDS

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