Auckland City Council
Media release

22 May 2008

Council trims community grants

The Community Services Committee today confirmed community groups will receive grants totalling $355,950 from the council’s community group assistance fund.

The committee decided not to allocate the full $435,000 available for distribution.

Chairperson of the Community Services Committee, Councillor Paul Goldsmith, says that the council is acutely aware of Aucklanders concerns about the rising cost of living as well as the cost of rates.

“We’re doing everything we can to ensure that the council’s rates are kept at the level of council’s inflation. This requires careful spending in everything the council does.

“The new council is not happy with the quality of spending for some of these community grants. In most cases they cost more to administer than the grants are worth; in others the assistance to groups provided by ratepayers seems arbitrary,” says Mr Goldsmith.

The community group assistance fund is one of several funds through which the council provides assistance to community groups.

The total amount given last year through all the funds was $3.4 million.

“The decision to under spend on the grants is a signal to ratepayers that the council is determined to find savings,” says Mr Goldsmith.

This year’s grants reflect the current guidelines.

The council intends to review all of the existing community group grants later this year, including:

• the community group assistance fund
•
• the community group accommodation support fund
•
• community board local funding
•
• community board discretionary funding
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• community board event funding
•
• school holiday programme funding
•
• creative communities funding
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• the community and recreation lease policy
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• the community halls fees policy
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• the community loans policy
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• funding agreements negotiated directly with the council
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Ends

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