Minute Item Attachments of Papakura Local Board

Papakura Local Board

08 February 2023

LB consultation document content template

Te Poari ā-Rohe o Papakura

Papakura Local Board

Our proposal for the Papakura Local Board’s operating and capital spend in 2023/2024

Key areas of spend	Community Services	Environmental Services	Planning Services	Governance	Total
Planned Operating Spend 2023/2024	$13.6 million	$148,000	$310,000	$957,000	$15.1 million*
Planned Capital Spend 2023/2024	$4.8 million	0	0	0	$4.8 million
*The proposal to reduce local board operating funding would mean an overall reduction of $866,000 to this planned operating spend for 2023/2024

Our key priorities in your Local Board Area in 2023/2024

Each year we deliver activities and services in your local board area. These are based on our Local Board Plan, which sets our three-year direction for the local board.

Our key priority areas are:

· With the number of businesses growing in the Takanini Area, the board intends to continue to support the Takanini Business Association towards a possible establishment of a Business Improvement District (BID) programme

· Provide free large community events supporting greater community cohesion after the COVID-19 lockdowns over recent years

· The board intends to continue to fund the Papakura Anzac Day dawn service and Drury Anzac event

· Continue funding the removal of juvenile mangroves in the Pahurehure Inlet

· Partnerships with Mana whenua and Mataawaka are valued, the board intends to continue funding Māori aspirations, supporting Papakura Māori Wardens, Māori-led initiatives and valuing Mātauranga to improve social and economic outcomes.

We will keep these in mind when we are responding to our budget challenge.

Responding to our budget challenge

The council’s proposed response to mitigate the budget pressures for 2023/2024 includes a proposed reduction of $16 million to local board operational funding – this would require the Papakura Local Board to reduce its planned operating spend by $866,000. To do this, we would need to make tough decisions, prioritising what we do and where we invest. To meet this reduction, we would have to discontinue, reduce spending, or increase fees within some of these activities:

· Economic Development

· Environmental education, Environmental restoration, pest control, community climate action, sustainability, water quality and waste minimisation, Environment volunteers

· Grants and events, plan development, community delivery / programmes, placemaking, Activation/Building capacity /Strategic partnerships, Arts and Culture (Venues and orgs), Arts broker and Arts programme, Youth, Parks activation

· Community Facility Closures, Community Lease Charges, Open space low or no mow areas, Reduction of programme, activation and staff presence at council operated arts and community centres

To help us make these decisions, we would like to hear from you on your priorities, for more information see page/section x of supporting information.

Papakura Local Board

08 February 2023

Section X: Local Board Supporting Information

Te Poari ā-Rohe o Papakura

X.1 Papakura Local Board

He kōrero mai i te Heamana

Message from the Chair

Here are our key proposed priorities for our Papakura Local Board Agreement 2023/2024 of what we hope to deliver. We know that our decisions will be impacted by the tight budget constraints which mean we won’t be able to deliver what we previously provided and we are disappointed about that.

Post-COVID we’ve heard from the community, there is a need for people to reconnect with each other. We support this through investment in free to attend events. We do intend to retain the traditional events such as Carols, Streetfest and Santa Parade. However, these budgets may need to be reduced and the style of event or frequency may need to be changed to deliver with a reduced budget.

We’ll continue to support the Takanini Business Association in its efforts to work towards becoming a Business Improvement District (BID).

We’ve heard from the community there has been a return of bird life to the Pahurehure Inlet area because of the mangrove removal. The board intends to continue to support the juvenile mangrove removal project.

Papakura has a strong military heritage, and the board has previously supported Anzac and Armistice Day events. However, with rising costs, we intend to continue with the dawn Papakura Anzac Day and Drury events but intend to discontinue the Armistice Day event. We may need to suspend or significantly vary the Papakura Anzac Day Civic event.

The board has previously funded several safety initiatives and we will be testing with the community which ones should be a high priority for board funding and which should be funded by other organisations or central government.

Given the significant impact of the proposed budget reductions, I strongly encourage you to provide feedback on what is important to you for 2023/2024.

Ngā mihi nui

(insert signature)

Brent Catchpole

Chairperson, Papakura Local Board

Introduction

Each year we plan the activities we will deliver in your local board area. These are based on our 2020 Local Board Plan, which sets our three-year direction.

This year, the council’s proposed response to mitigate the budget pressures for 2023/2024 includes a proposed reduction of $16 million to local board operational funding – this would require the Papakura Local Board to reduce its planned operating spend by $866,000. To do this we would need to make tough decisions, prioritising what we do and where we invest.

We are seeking your input on our proposed priorities for spending for the 2023/2024 financial year.

Key areas of spend	Community Services	Environmental Services	Planning Services	Governance	Total
Planned Operating Spend 2023/2024	$13.6 million	$148,000	$310,000	$957,000	$15.1 million*
Planned Capital Spend 2023/2024	$4.8 million	0	0	0	$4.8 million
*The proposal to reduce local board operating funding would mean an overall reduction of $866,000 to this planned operating spend for 2023/2024

Our key priorities in your Local Board Area in 2023/2024

· Provide free large community events e.g. Streetfest, Carols in the Park, Santa Parade supporting greater community cohesion and wellbeing after the COVID-19 lockdowns over recent years

· Given the strong military history in Papakura, the board intends to continue to fund the Papakura Anzac Day dawn service and Drury Anzac event.

· Continue funding the removal of juvenile mangroves in the Pahurehure Inlet

Responding to our budget challenge

If we are required to reduce our planned operating spend by $866,000 we would have to discontinue, reduce spending, or increase fees within some of these activities:

Activity	Detail / Service level and community implications
Economic development	Reduced funding for programmes and activities
Environmental education	Reduced support for Wai Care programme in schools. Young leader’s programmes reduced/stopped. Lost progress on stream education and awareness with communities and schools. Fewer community events / workshops. Reduced support to local groups / loss of local employment.
Environmental restoration, pest control, community climate action and sustainability	Increased incidence of pests (most notably in and around significant ecological areas). Reduced support to local groups / loss of local employment or reduced hours resulting in reduced outcomes/deliverables. Fewer community climate events. Reduced ability to deliver on local climate plan. Climate action groups may cease operation / reduce in scale. Reduced support to local groups / loss of local employment.
Water quality	Reduced local water quality outcomes. Reduced community environmental action. Reduced support to local groups / loss of local employment. Reduction in Māori environmental board supported outcomes.
Waste minimisation	Reduced support to local groups / loss of local employment. Lost progress on sustainability workshops / community engagement. Increased incidents of illegal dumping and litter.
Grants	Discontinued or reduced grants programmes. Some programmes and events might not go ahead as the local board may be the primary funder.
Events	The Board’s events programme could be reduced / whole events discontinued, funding reduced or discontinued, or individual events scaled back or reduced in frequency. Exploring options to deliver alternative lower cost format for Anzac services. Moving services off roads reducing traffic management costs where possible. The board may need to suspend, discontinue or significantly vary the Papakura Anzac Day Civic event. Discontinued Armistice Day event.
Investigations, plans / policy development	Delay in availability of information to inform decision making around use of parks.
Community delivery / programmes Placemaking Activation/Building capacity /Strategic partnerships	Reduced programmes. Discontinuing or significantly reducing funding of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) monitoring and the Community Safety Coordinator (CSC) role and recommending these should be funded from external funding. Significantly reduce or discontinue funding band programmes. Reduced community led placemaking activation. Reduced community garden and food initiatives. Reduced age friendly initiatives.
Environment - volunteers	Reduced expenditure on plantings and maintenance. Reduced animal pest equipment.
Arts and Culture (Venues and organisations) Arts broker and Arts programme	Reduced arts activations and programmes.
Youth	Reduced youth funding
Parks activation	Reduced number of activities, change of activities or discontinuation of park activations.
Community Facility Closures	Communities will be impacted by the closure of community facilities and the services that are delivered from those facilities. The level of impact will depend on the facility and services, and there may be other reasons to consider closing a facility, e.g. a facility is underperforming, poorly utilised or building condition is poor. Reduced likelihood of meeting objectives of adopted policy and public expectations set through documents such as the Community Facilities Network Plan. Some facility closures may free up savings or capital expenditure for better prioritisation elsewhere, and further analyses will be conducted as part of the 10-year Budget 2024-2034 (Long-term Plan).
Community Lease Charges	Service levels will not be directly impacted. Some community groups may have difficulty meeting the cost of the increased maintenance and administration fees. If local boards decide not to raise the community leasing charges from the current baseline amount charged, there is no requirement to top up community lease revenue budgets for charging below the proposed fees.
Open space low or no mow areas	Regenerative (low mow or no mow) practices can provide additional benefits such as cost reduction, improved staff safety, and reversing climate change processes (e.g., by rebuilding soil organic matter, sustaining pollinators, and restoring degraded soil biodiversity). It can also result in both carbon drawdown and improved water infiltration, and storage in soils, preventing and reducing stormwater runoff and keeping grass greener for longer during dry spells.
Reduction of programmes, activation and staff presence at council operated arts and community centres	May result in services being unavailable at a local site. Customers may need to travel to an open site to reach services, potentially to another local board. Reduced sense of neighbourhood and community identity. Learning and cultural programmes, events and activities no longer available. Increased service variability across Auckland because of service level differences between council-operated and community-operated facilities. It can further impact the community through reduced involvement in shaping and delivering programmes; fewer local opportunities to connect and have shared experiences; and a reduced sense of local community and local town centre activities.

We would like to hear from you on your priorities before we decide on how to reduce our spend.

What do you think?

· It is proposed to reduce funding by $16 million across all local boards which will impact the activities and services delivered by local boards. Given this possible reduction in funding, what do you think of our proposed priorities for services and activities in this local board in 2023/2024?

· If funding for local board activities is reduced, which three of our services do you not want to reduce funding for? (i.e. which are most important to you?

(generic questions still TBC)