Carterton District Council is seeking feedback from Carterton residents on its Draft Annual Plan for the 2023/24 financial year.

In 2021, the Council consulted the community on its Ten-Year Plan [TYP] for 2021-2031. After receiving public feedback, the plan was finalised, and outlined the Council’s priority projects and works for the next ten years. Some of the projects included in the TYP for the 2023/24 included year 3 of the roading programme approved by Waka Kotahi, along with continued wastewater and water renewals on our underground pipes, pumps and infrastructure.

Although the draft plan doesn’t contain significant changes from Year 3 of the TYP, Council is still open to receiving public feedback for consideration before finalising the plan in June.

Chief Executive Geoff Hamilton said Council officers have worked hard to deliver the plan as outlined in the Ten Year-Plan, however, increases across New Zealand to inflation has made it harder to deliver the outcomes of the plan within the same budget. This means the average rating increase when the draft plan is finalised is indicated to be 6.2%, as opposed to the 4% increase previously outlined in the TYP.

“The average inflation in New Zealand increased by 7.2% last December, and we see businesses and organisations all across the country affected by this,” Hamilton said.

“In addition, we have had significant damage to our roading network from the severe weather events over the last 18 months. This plan includes $1.9m operating expenditure to repair roading infrastructure, on top of our usual roading maintenance and renewals programme. The majority of this work will be completed at a higher financial assistance rate from Waka Kotahi. This is in the process of being approved by Waka Kotahi, however there is still a significant impact on rates from this additional work.”

“We recognise that the increase in rates is going to affect many of our residents which is why our Council officers have considered a number of options to save costs across the organisation.”

Officers reviewed budgets on a line by line basis to make savings where possible, without reducing the level of service council provides. Cost cutting areas include reducing the amount of depreciation funded through rates, on waters and roading assets. Some projects have also been delayed for further consideration during the next TYP, including the planned administration building, and carpark and depot move. This has resulted in an average rates increase lower than the rate of inflation. Without these cost saving measures, the average rates increase would be closer to 17%.

Staff costs to deliver the levels of service that were agreed as part of the 2021-31 TYP have increased. This is partly the result of service level demands, such as an increased need for IT security, and labour and salary market movements such as the Living Wage which has increased by 10%. Accordingly, a 5% increase to the current staff salaries and wages cost has been budgeted to ensure Council can still attract and retain staff in a competitive labour market. In addition, costs have increased due to some additional staff employed over the last two years to meet service and other demands. This draft Annual Plan includes 7.5 new FTE’s, however only 3 of these are fully funded using rates revenue. The other roles will be funded through fees and charges, or external revenue, such as 3 Waters transition funding.

With the highest budget increases for emergency roading, the rates increase will be higher in the rural area and lower in the urban area. The draft Annual Plan includes examples of rates increases for different property types.

The draft plan can be viewed online from today at

www.cdc.govt.nz/annualplan

with feedback being open between 21 April and 15 May 2023

https://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/2304/202324_Draft_Annual_Plan.pdf

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