Bill Faulkner informed us in his weekly column (18 March 2011) that it costs $732,000 a year to assist Tauranga City Aquatics Ltd (TCAL) to keep the pools open, plus $400,000 for maintenance and another, $1,783,000, in loan repayments, bringing the annual figure to nearly $3 million. Bill goes onto say: 'As I said often, if the council were operating the pools, this operating expenditure figure would have doubled or trebled” I guess we should all be grateful that our pools are run by TCAL, and not the council, the annual cost each ratepayer around about $36, had the council been directly in charge this figure would have been in excess of $100. If Bill is correct, about the TCC staff being incompetent, it appears it would be more prudent to have someone other than the council in charge of our community facilities.
To reduce our deficit, perhaps our council should consider off loading all of the services that are provided by the TCC, this would vastly reduce the staffing levels, saving us heaps on high the salaries and other related costs, and as a bonus, we could recoup a few dollars by leasing out vacant office space at city hall.
Brian Porter, Welcome Bay.