Dodgy Council Calculator is out $120k

  Auckland Council’s published Project Twin Streams 2014/15 numbers (see table below)  are out by  120k.    The numbers only add to  $346,367. Is this an error or a revenue omission? The last questions to our council reps have gone unanswered.

Also Dialect Communications don’t appear on a search of the NZ  Business Register.  It’s only 8k but they also get 32 k from Henderson, total $40k for Marketing    So who are Dialect Communications.  Google says they are from Canada? ***See Update Below*** Previously the website was done by Agency –  ChangeHub based at Lopdell, who offer social marketing and behaviour change training .

Henderson’s numbers add up.  But not ours.  Hmmmmm.  I wonder where that 120k went.    My guess is  …….North West Wildlink is a clue.

And that’s just the start, if you look at the Full Spreadsheet of the 2014 Annual Plan you’ll see their is an opex component to Project Twin Streams – a Network Maintenance Budget which varies between $350k and 200k.  Who is the lucky recipient of that budget.  All this for a stream project that is pretty much fully grown in and requires very little maintenance and apart from a some community planting areas.  There is no major infrastructure work  it’s pretty much done.  It just doesn’t smell right Auckland Council.

my numbers wont add up

*** UPDATE: (16/9) The $40,000 Project Twin Streams communications contract has been confirmed by council to be a contract to a sole trader on the North Shore!?     More information has been requested. It’s another example of West Auckland money being spent creating jobs on the North Shore.

If you’d like to complain about this to the council you can do so here. 

This is an excerpt from Auckland Council’s Procurement Policy:

“The multiplier effect

An important contributor to a healthy local economy
is the multiplier effect of income in to a local area –
in other words, how much of that money is spent and
then re-spent in the local area and how many times
this happens, before it leaks out of the area.
Given the budgets of public organisations, public
sector procurement can have a significant multiplier
effect on a local economy.
The Procurement Manual will set out more
information on using Local Impact Assessments”