''Annual income 20, annual expenditure 19 19 shillings and sixpence, result happiness. Annual income 20, annual expenditure 20 and sixpence, result misery.''
So said Charles Dickens' Wilkins Micawber.
Our council works hard to try to control expenditure.
But we could do so much better if we spent at least as much time and energy on increasing our income from sources other than our ratepayers.
We could look carefully at our property portfolio.
These funds came from endowments which have been set aside and invested in property to give us an income.
They are at present earning 6% on our capital so far as we can tell. We are just now acknowledging this dismal position.
In the past we have been told such grandiose stories that we would never accept any investments which earn less than 8%.
We have been told our properties are all fine investments, but the detail of actual returns has been missing as a result of our previous property department hiding behind the excuse of commercial sensitivity.
Since we have about $100 million in this fund, that is $100 million which is costing us money, rather than making money, every day, every year.
We are working towards a financial strategy which includes the intention our property portfolio will have an income greater than our borrowing costs in 10 years' time.
While this strategy accepts, at least, that the position should change, we really need this money to be working for us sooner than 10 years' time.
We could have a good look at Dunedin City Holdings Ltd (DCHL) and what this company is earning for us.
Recently, it has become clear we will receive a very much reduced dividend from DCHL, because of some much-needed investments in infrastructure.
This situation is expected to continue for some time. But the point of the companies under the DCHL umbrella is to make us good returns over time.
An investigation was done into the stadium to see whether options other than the status quo were feasible, but we have done no such studies on the balance of our council companies.
With our other companies, unlike the stadium, we may well have the option of selling them or assets within them.
We have, of course, had a look at Delta, and we were told some of the decisions made by Delta were not ideal.
But even then, we chose not to ask the bigger questions about whether owning Delta or any of our other businesses is the right thing to do.
There will, of course, be other issues to consider apart from pure financial returns.
But without looking at the returns over time - as an investment for our capital - we cannot begin to decide whether we are maximising our income and if not whether we have a good reason for accepting lower returns.
In short, we can surely look at our total investment in DCHL and establish which operations are good investments for us taking into account why we have these companies in the first place.
And we can look at the decisions we make that reduce our income, and be open about the cost to ratepayers of these reductions.
For example, the cycleways along the one-way street network will reduce parking, and therefore parking income for the city, by a significant and at present unquantified amount.
The choice not to invest in fossil fuels through the Waipori Fund will reduce our income.
(If we had decided to do this a decade or so ago we would have lost $400,000 per year. In the future, who knows what the cost will be?)
Holding on to some of our companies may be happening because we believe the jobs held in these companies are better than if the work was done by a privately owned company.
Dunedin people may well think a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars per year of investment income is worth it for the benefits of not involving ourselves in the possible extraction of fossil fuels, or having separated cycleways.
Or Dunedin people might think council company jobs are worth retaining that may be running at a loss and have no other redeeming features.
However, to make those judgements, the resultant loss of income should be properly taken into account.
If we do think as Dickens suggests, that we should live within our means to be happy, then we can do this by increasing our income and controlling the creeping unacknowledged reductions in income.
Surely we want a council which looks after its income, as well as controlling its expenditure.
Result happiness.
