Source: Radio New Zealand
RNZ
Tasman District ratepayers are facing a rates increase of almost 10 percent, as the council grapples with the costs of last years floods and three waters infrastructure, on top of its core business.
Last week, the Tasman District Council elected members were split on moving forward with its draft annual plan which had an average rates increase of 9.9 percent, with sent staff back to the drawing board to consider how to further cut costs.
The split vote of 7-7 forced the council to seek legal advice after the plan failed to progress.
At an emergency meeting today, elected members voted 10-4 to put the draft annual plan out for consultation. The average rates increase for the 2026-27 remained at 9.9 percent, with an end of year debt of $320 million, $8m less than what was proposed at the last meeting.
The increase includes 2.3 percent for the costs of last year’s weather events, 5.3 percent for three waters cost increases and 2.3 percent for the rest of council business, which is below the government’s proposed 4 percent rates cap.
Council chief executive Leonie Rae told elected members that it had taken the direction to lower rates and had come back with options that could be exercised within the annual plan boundaries, with clarity on what the impact on the community would be.
She said the organisation was running lean, the salary budget had been reduced by $1.4m and it was running with around 40 staff under its FTE, and there were “continuing efforts to find efficiencies, savings and extra revenue where possible”.
Rae said in comparison to other councils, Tasman’s rates per capita were $1673, while the average was $1898. The district’s rates per rating unit were $3668, compared to an average of $3876.
“We are doing work and continuing to try and improve our financial position because we’re ratepayers too and no one wants to come to you with big figures, least of all of us.
“I do want to stress to you that further cuts into the operations will have to make significant cuts to levels of service because everyone is very, very busy.”
At last week’s meeting, elected members debated how the proposed storm recovery rate should be set, how much of the roading renewals should be funded by debt, and whether several community facility projects should be paused or not.
At today’s meeting, there was further discussion about the council’s debt in the short term, and whether to increase depreciation to get some debt relief.
One of the more contentious recommendations from last week was that a targeted weather event recovery rate of $125 be introduced for five years to fund $14.6m of the council’s recovery costs from the two winter floods last year.
Councillor Timo Neubauer proposed an amendment that the rate be set on capital value, instead of being a fixed amount per rating unit, which was lost 8-6, with staff agreeing it could be included as an option in the consultation document though the fixed charge would remain the preferred option.
Neubauer said the council had spent the last few months looking for savings, which hadn’t been easy and he hoped the process could be refined in the future, so elected members had more detail about major capital projects, earlier in the process.
He said he and others had asked for more detail around significant increases in the Three Waters infrastructure projects, and aggregated figures made it hard to understand what was driving the costs and where prioritisation could have occurred.
Mayor Tim King said the region was facing continued pressure in many areas, as was the rest of the country.
Mayor Tim King. Samantha Gee / RNZ
“That is the situation we are in all the time, pretty much the whole time I have been in this seat, things have come from left field, Covid, floods, it has been never ending the challenges.”
He said “uncertainty was the name of the game” and the council needed to be adaptable and flexible as it faced those challenges.
King said the council was not a business but instead had to provide a mix of community services, act as a regulator and be an infrastructure provider while also promoting growth.
“We have all of these roles and all of these hats and they don’t fit neatly into a tidy financial package.”
Councillor Trindi Walker asked whether there was any room for movement, if the feedback from the community after consultation was that they could not afford a 9.9 percent rates rise.
“Do we have room to suddenly stop, pause, look and acknowledge what our community is saying? Or are we so far in now that we have to wait for the long-term plan?”
Deputy Mayor Brent Maru supported the motion and said the diversity around the council table was a good thing.
“The debate and the different views and the different suggestions isn’t unhealthy for the system.”
“As we work through this, we will compromise, we will check the decisions we make on behalf of the communities we represent and come up with a collective decision.”
Councillors Mark Greening, Mark Hume, Dean McNamara and Paul Morgan voted against moving the updated draft annual plan to consultation.
McNamara said he wanted to see more action taken to reduce costs.
“This plan’s still going out with building nice-to-haves when we’re borrowing money to pay for our business as usual, all which increase both our debt and our ongoing costs.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
