Mayoral expenses
April 4th, 2012 at 10:00 am by David FarrarThe NZ Herald reports:
A bill of about $91,000 from Hamilton Mayor Julie Hardaker’s office last year has shocked some city councillors who are questioning why ratepayers should be paying for a Koru Club membership and $1257 for a new mayoral office chair.
Okay first of all if any Councillor is really suggesting a Mayor shouldn’t have Koru Club membership, they’re just being petty and stupid. The Hamilton City Council has around $3 billion of assets and turns over over $200 million a year and they think the Mayor shouldn’t have a $361/year Koru Club card? Never mind that the reason frequent travellers have them is so they can be productive and keep working while waiting for flights.
The chair criticism is more valid. You can get very nice executive chairs for $500 to $800. $1,257 is at the higher end of the range.
But other items have attracted criticism, including $994.78 on an Air New Zealand Koru Club membership, $1958 on mayoral stationery and $2000 on print ads promoting her Mayor in the Square events.
They are quibbling about stationery and a measly $2,000 of advertising?
Councillor Ewan Wilson said it was inappropriate for ratepayers to be coughing up for a membership to an airport lounge when the mayor earned enough to pay it herself.
Oh don’t be a dick. The Mayor is travelling on work business, not personal business, hence the Council pays. As Wilson should know, it allows you to keep working while travelling.
And the mayoral chair was ordered because she could “not sit properly” in the old one because it was designed for a man. She had been unaware of the cost of the new one. “I just tried some chairs and that one looked good.”
Probably a good idea in future to ask the cost. If one chair is say an A+ fit and costs $1,500 but another is an A- fit and is $400, then you go for the latter one if the difference in quality is minimal but the price difference is significant.
Hamilton Citizens and Ratepayers Association president John Easto said the costs were “quite staggering”. “It’s a bloody expensive position. I don’t think it’s justifiable, some of those costs. A Koru Club membership is fairly normal for senior managers at corporates but the other things I have real problems with – pretty flowers and things.”
Here is the problem I have reading the story. I don’t know if $91,000 is a high level of expenditure for a Mayoral office or not. With the exception of the chair, most items cited seem routine. But what would be very useful information is what has been the expenditure for the Mayoral office over say the last few years? Has it been static, increasing, or decreasing?
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April 4th, 2012 at 10:04 am
i thought the chair expense was fine myself.
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 10:05 am
AS mayor of Hamilton, where is she flying too so often that she need KC membership? Te Rapa?
[DPF: Wellington for meetings with Government and Local Govt NZ]
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 10:10 am
DPF: “…Mayor shouldn’t have a $361/year Koru Club card?”
Article: “…including $994.78 on an Air New Zealand Koru Club membership…”
Why the difference in price – a different tier membership?
[DPF: I presume it is a multi-year membership]
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 10:22 am
I’m guessing it was a corprate 2 year membership, plus the joining fee ( $958), an credit card fee?
So that means Hamilton City council has at least 9 other staff members with council paid koru club memberships.
I don’t see the $361/year rate that you mention DPF.
Not saying its not worth it for the mayor, but I know in Dunedin our old mayor Chin flew whatever was cheapest, and I never saw him in the Koru Club (at least in Dunedin anyway), I even saw him on a Pacific Blue flight in the cheap seats.
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 10:23 am
Given Wilson doesn’t exactly have a record of prudence and has now become another serial trougher he should STFU.
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 10:32 am
nothing but politics at play here – stupidity of wilson’s comments about koru club membership is meaningless as all the councillors are crapping themselves about being tossed aside next year, everyones trying to paint themselves as frugal and not part of the spendaholic council of the past. Also just trying to get profile – most of the councillors have ramped up their own letters to the ed etc trying to paint their ‘colleagues’ as being the ones to blame for the debt problem we have. However, he probably went too far with the koru comment as most people hopefully will think he’s being over the top. John Easto’s comments were the more appropriate way to frame the argument (questioning the spend but being realistic on some areas that are appropriate such as the koru club), but agree David that articles like this are useless if no meaningful comparison to historical mayoral costs or between similar sized councils are made.
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 10:37 am
$361 is if you have a particular type of credit card, otherwise it’s about $600 plus a one-off joining fee, that will have taken it to almost a grand.
She’ll probably get to gold in her own right soon anyway, in which case she wouldn’t need a membership.
But yeah I think it’s politically quite popular to nit-pick at every expense.
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 11:18 am
Does the lounge really provide much more ‘productivity’ these days? Plenty of airports provide free wifi, and I see dozens of people on laptops, iPads and making phone calls in the general area of the airport.
Every time I’ve been in a lounge, I see plenty of people reading the paper, eating the free food, and drinking the free booze. Bugger all looking like they’re working.
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 12:02 pm
Councillors should focus on the important stuff. If the citizens of Hamilton won’t spring for a Koru membership, they don’t deserve a good mayor. It is not just working in the lounge, but later more efficient check ins etc that make it a good proposition for any exec. I don’t know if the mayor is doing a good job, but she will need to given the dopey council Hamilton have had for years.
Vote:The chair was silly (never give your opponents opportunity to slag you) but if this is the worst of her mayoral expenses why are they wasting print on it? Oh thats right it makes good copy and panders to the have nots’ prejudices.
April 4th, 2012 at 12:19 pm
I’m with Farmerpete – if a decent chair (which is no doubt sat in quite a bit) is the biggest gripe get over it. It’s a stupid article – why not headline it “nitpickers whinge about mayoral expenses”?
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 12:30 pm
$90K is the rates for an entire street in hamilton with say 20-30 houses in it. Councils should sell their flash offices and run themselves out of prefabs on some council owned lands on the outskirts of town.
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 1:06 pm
Local bodies and their Town Clerks are coming under scrutiny and not before time. They run monopolies. They have the power to throw people out of their homes if they cant pay their rates.
They have all sorts of other powers.
Since the 2002 power of general competentcy many Councils have taken this as an opportunity to spend rate payers hard earned money on mad cap fruit loop schemes.
Its time they were bought to heel and forced to do what they should have been doing.
And thats looking after roads rubbish libraries parks and other basic local matters.
And doing it with fiscal frugality.
As for the Town Clerks and the other over paid staff. Time they were paid according to the real job they have the skill set required.
And that aint the same as a CEO in a public listed company working in a highly competitive market sector.
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 1:20 pm
“and turns over over $200 million a year ”
Another disturbing show of your true colours DPF.
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
Sitting in a koru club right now..
Think I paid 750 for the first year.. 250 of it was joining fee.
I’ve never seen am MP do work in a koru club.. They just feed. Especially the labour trash
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
Ha ha dime. So you’ve never seen ANY politician working in the Koru lounge, but especially the Labour ones? Do they sit there not working in a peculiarly offensive way?
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
Mike – whenever I recognize one they are always at the food bar.. It’s like a trough.
Saw David Parker getting a coffee yesterday. Creepy looking dude.
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 2:21 pm
It’s easier to list politicians who DON’T look creepy. Like that list of scandals…
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 3:08 pm
I watched Anne Tolley drinking a cup of coffee on Friday and working intently on a pile of official-looking papers.
That Greens woman co-leader waddles up to the food and starts stuffing it into her mouth before she even gets it on to her plate. Yuk.
However if I had been stuck in toxic Wellington all day I’d be looking forward to a drink and a snack too. What a judgemental lot Kiwis are.
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 3:32 pm
$1257 because the sheila has a fat arse seems high but then again Flower-show Bob wants to penalise Christchurch business for years to come so maybe not so high.
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 4:04 pm
Ah, BeaB, I don’t think Tolley can actually eat an awful lot.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3260435/Stomach-stapled-MPs-put-weight-behind-Turia
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 5:25 pm
Maybe its time to publish all Mayors expenses.
Vote:Crikey the Mayor of Hastings and head of LGNZ is reputed to have a personal advisor.
Is that OK and who pays?
April 4th, 2012 at 7:54 pm
My only beef with Koru Club membership is that those with Gold status (i.e. most MPs) shouldn’t also have Koru Club paid for, because they already get free access. The poor darlings can survive the first 6 months of flying without it until the get the status
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 11:44 pm
This is just a case of one incompetent wastrel complaining about the habits of another. If the people of Hamilton had their way, council members would be forced to sell their internal organs to help do something about the massive debt they have inflicted upon the city. Yes, they are that bad.
I personally favour the classical Greek practice of suspending local democracy and appointing a tyrant for Hamilton. No tyrant could be worse.
Vote:April 4th, 2012 at 11:59 pm
“My only beef with Koru Club membership is that those with Gold status (i.e. most MPs) shouldn’t also have Koru Club paid for, because they already get free access. The poor darlings can survive the first 6 months of flying without it until the get the status”
Air New Zealand gifts MPs free Koru membership anyhow. Although you are correct that it likely becomes redundant for a lot of them once they reach Gold.
Vote:April 5th, 2012 at 12:20 am
Of course this is outrageous. Why are the mayors meeting at all? Why can’t these “important” events be streamed online?
The chair is of course a joke – when you’re spending other peoples money it doesn’t matter at all what things cost any more. Koru club membership is a perk – and she can more than afford this on her own income if she thinks its advantageous to her. Others don’t – apart from the perks they get for themselves.
Being mayor doesn’t make you immune to having your spending questioned at all. We are all supposedly in a recession, should should she be any different than any of us. Lead by example I say.
Vote: