21 Mayoral staff is too many

The Herald reports:

Auckland Mayor Len Brown spent $3.73 million running the mayoral office in the past financial year, 10 per cent less than the allowable budget of $4.152 million.

Mr Brown’s office today pro-actively released details about his office spend following an Official Information Act request from councillor Cameron Brewer.

The figures show the mayoral office spent $2.32 million on salaries for 21 fulltime and part-time staff – an average of about $110,000 per mayoral staffer.

21 staff is too many for a mayoral office.

By comparison the Prime Minister’s Office has 25 staff. And the NZ Government is around 40 times bigger than the Auckland Council.

A Mayor does need some staff – a comms person, a policy person, an EA etc. But 21 is way too many.