Can North Rodney go alone?

Stuff reports:

A northern Rodney breakaway council could make an operating surplus of up to $5 million in its first year of operation, a new feasibility report shows.

The report ‘disproves’ the Morrison Low report, commissioned by the Local Government Commission to inform its decision on options for local government reorganisation in Auckland.

But the commission says its too far along in the process to consider the report.

Morrison Low’s report claimed the proposed northern Rodney council would operate at a first year loss of $13.5m deficit, leading to a 48 per cent rates rise.

The Northern Action Group (NAG), which is proposing the breakaway from Auckland Council, commissioned their own report by APR Consultants in response to the commission’s report, which it believed wrongly used figures from Auckland Council.

I suspect that Auckland Council figures will of course be hostile to a part of the region breaking away.

The NAG report is online here.

The APR study was based on three councils of similar size and make-up – the Tasman, Marlborough and Gisborne district councils.

It used internationally recognised methods to benchmark the councils’ operating income and expenses on a per capita and per ratings basis.

This produced 12 different financial performances for the proposed Northern Rodney Unitary Council (NRUC), NAG chairman Bill Townson said.

Depending on the model, year one operating figures ranged between a $5m surplus to a $5.5m deficit, with a surplus occurring more times than not.

“The average of all 12 outcomes shows that a stand-alone unitary council could achieve a healthy operational surplus and disproves the Morrison Low report’s contention that the proposed NRUC would not be a reasonably practical option,” Townson said. 

NAG has submitted the report to the Local Government Commission asking it to now considers the breakaway proposal as a viable option.

It will be interesting to see what decision is made.