Council Adopts Annual Report 2013

The Mackenzie District Council has adopted its Annual Report 2013, outlining the council’s activities and finances over the past year.

Mackenzie Mayor Claire Barlow says the year was challenging in many ways, but the Annual Report shows significant achievements were made.

The council received an income of $13.25 million, 46% of which came from rates. Over the same period the council spent $11.58 million, leaving a surplus of $1.67 million. This included spending an un-budgeted $1.18 million on repairs and clean-up work after significant floods, snow and wind storms resulted in widespread damage throughout the district.

“The emergency response and management of repairs has been excellent and our contractors and staff deserve to be commended for their efforts,” says Mrs Barlow. “The snow events in particular provided an opportunity to assess our levels of service. It has been heartening that a review of our standards indicated a high level of public satisfaction.”

Other highlights of the past year included:

• Achieve clarification in relation to water source options for the future upgrade of the Twizel water supply.

• Receiving and granting a very high number of building consents.

• Making progress on projects including the Alps2Ocean cycleway and the Tekapo lakefront development.

• Meeting the challenge of changes to legislation, including the refining of the purpose of local government under the Local Government Act.

Council chief executive Wayne Barnett says the Annual Report is an independently audited document that sets out how the council is collecting and spending rates in the community.

“It puts everything out in the open, for anyone to read,” he says. “Ratepayers and residents can take assurance from the Audit New Zealand finding that the council continues to comply with generally accepted accounting practice.”

The Mackenzie District Council Annual Report 2013 is available online at www.mackenzie.govt.nz and from council service centres and libraries.

ENDS

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