January 3, 2014 10:00am by David Farrar

A Mayor who spends his own money!

Michael R. Bloomberg loves tropical fish. So when he was elected mayor of New York, he installed two giant aquariums inside City Hall.

The cost to him for having the tanks cleaned out every week for the past 12 years: about $US62,400 ($70,100).

The mayor likes to nosh, too. So he paid to feed his staff daily a light breakfast (coffee, bagels, yogurt) and a modest lunch (tuna salad, peanut butter and jam, sliced fruit).

The bill for his entire mayoralty: about $US890,000.

An analysis by The New York Times shows that Bloomberg has doled out at least $US650 million ($730 million) on a wide variety of perks and bonuses, political campaigns and advocacy work, charitable giving and social causes, not to mention travel and lodging, connected to his time and role as mayor. (His estimated tab for a multiday trip to China, with aides and security in tow: $US500,000.)

In the process, he has entirely upended the financial dynamics surrounding New York’s top job.

In the past, the city paid its mayor; Bloomberg paid to be the city’s mayor.

In moves that would make a financial planner’s head spin, he rejected the $US2.7 million worth of salary to which he was entitled (accepting just $US1 a year) and, starting in 2001, turned on a spigot of cash that has never stopped gushing.

I wonder if he would like to be Mayor of Auckland?