Mayor Brown has released his draft proposal for the Auckland Council Group’s Annual Budget 2023/2024. The proposal includes the option to discontinue all contestable regional grants (across arts, events, community recreation, environment, heritage etc $8m in total), and the removal of another $20m from community and social innovation and economic development programmes, which includes art events programmes.

Information on the possible impacts on our sector can be found here with pages 16 to 18 in particular referencing possible impacts on funding.

The proposal goes to Council for discussion on Thursday 15 December where councillors will decide on budget items for public consultation. Once agreed, consultation materials will be prepared for public consultation, which will occur in March next year.

Auckland’s arts, culture and creative sector is still experiencing the impacts of COVID-19, and our perception is that the recovery of the sector is still fragile.  Any substantial loss of funding from Council would further diminish the contribution of the sector to the Auckland region.

To support the sector’s engagement in this process, we’ve prepared this short letter template to send to your local councillor and Local Board members outlining how these proposed cuts and changes will affect you ahead of the meeting on Thursday 15 December.

In the meantime, we urge you to read what is proposed, think about how it will affect your organisation or your practice, and think about how you might respond to Council.  While we will reach out to the sector early next year for information to support advocacy, we would welcome any insights you can offer us now to help us understand the potential impacts of the budget proposals.