Today the Whakatāne Action Group (WAG) has written an open letter (below) to the mayor and councillors of the Whakatāne District Council requesting rejection of the first version of the 2025-26 Annual Plan and its proposed 11.7% average rates rise across the district. It is WAG’s view that the proposed rates rise, an unquantified ongoing council operating deficit and burgeoning council debt are unacceptable to the community at this difficult economic time and as evidenced by the results of the very recent council residents survey.

WAG has called on the mayor and councillors to reject the proposed 2025-26 Annual Plan and to use the available time until the 30 June approval deadline to work together to force the Annual Plan to be completely redone with the rates rise limited to the current rate of inflation, council’s current $14 million plus operating deficit to be substantially eliminated and burgeoning debt levels to be halted.

At the end of the day it is all about respect, empathy and affordability to the community. Rate rises over recent years, massive increases in council debt and both without any review of existing staff levels or significant spending cuts, together with The Whakatāne District Council’s failure to participate in the latest New Zealand Taxpayer’s Union annual Ratepayer’s Report are beyond the pale and must be stopped. Whakatāne’s councillors need to act now or prepare to look for a new job after the council elections in October.

Note:

Open Letter to Whakatāne's Mayor and Councillors

Hi

I am writing to you as the mayor or a councilllor at the Whakatāne District Council to express my concerns about council’s Annual Plan 2025-26 discussion at the briefing on Wednesday 19th February 2025.

On 12th December I made a Whakatāne Action Group (WAG) presentation to council about the 2025-26 Annual Plan development and it remains available on the Council’s website. On the second to last page of our presentation WAG asked Council, during the development of the 2025-26 Annual Plan, to focus on three things:

1. The 2025-26 annual rates rise percentage,
2. the 2025-26 operating deficit, and
3. the 2025-26 capital works programme.

It is of great concern to myself and WAG that last Wednesday’s approximate two hour discussion about the Annual Plan for 2025-26 dealt only with the expected rates rise for 2025-26 with a very confused side discussion about operating deficits and debt.

No information was provided and there was no discussion about the proposed operating deficit for 2025-26. As an elected member you do not know if the 2025-26 operating deficit will be more or less than the expected $14.4 million 2024-25 operating deficit AND what has been the impact of the $8.3 million of transport connections savings to WDC following reduced NZTA Waka Kotaki funding.

And no information was provided and there was no discussion about council’s capital works program for 2025-26. As an elected member you do not know what capital works will be planned for the 2025-26 year, the extent to which each project is necessary or a nice-to-have and the impact of those plans on council’s overall debt levels.

Absent from your 2025-26 Annual Plan deliberations and discussions last Wednesday was any significant review of council’s proposed new spending, absent was any cancellation of nice-to-haves, absent was any line-by-line review of council’s existing business-as-usual spending, absent was any review of council’s existing staff (FTE) levels, absent was any discussion about how to quickly reduce operating cost spending to eliminate council’s $10 million plus operating deficit and absent was any review of proposed capital works spending.

The net outcome of Councils discussion on Wednesday was a proposed 1% reduction in the rates increase to a district wide 11.7% average for 2025-26 (vis-a-vis the 12.7% year two Long Term Plan proposed average rates rise) and an expectation that 1.2% of further operating expenditure savings (apparently attributable to declining inflation and interest rates) will be applied to reducing the council’s operating deficit debt.

Be very sure that the 1.2% of further operating expenditure savings will NOT be applied to reducing the council’s operating deficit debt. It will only reduce the operating deficit for 2025-26 by say $1 million from the currently expected 2024-25 $14.4 million operating deficit. Your inaction as Whakatāne’s mayor or councillor is allowing the $10 million plus (subject to resolving the cancelled NZTA funding impact) operating deficits to continue.

And so it is that you all collectively, as our community elected representatives, have now invited council staff to go away and prepare the final Annual Plan document for 2025-26 for approved on 20th March. Only then, at the very last hour, will the planned operating deficit for 2025-26 be disclosed (well we all hope it will be) and only then will you know what the proposed capital works spend will be for 2025-26. As the mayor or a councillor not engaged on a day-to-day basis in the Annual Plan development you will no doubt be pressured to accept and approve whatever appears in the formal Annual Plan document tabled on 20th March.

For the sake of financially rescuing the community, I ask you to consider your position with respect to the concerns that I have raised on behalf of WAG. If you are prepared to take any action I ask you to work with the mayor and other councillors to delay the 2025-26 Annual Plan approval meeting until June. Then use the available three (four) months working with the mayor and other councillors, and relying on section 41A(2) of the Local Government Act, impose an explicit requirement to get the rates rise down to near the Consumer’s Price Index rate of inflation AND a near elimination of the current $14.4 million plus operating deficit following the $8.3 million transport connections savings supported by some staff cuts, appropriate service reductions and delays of non-critical spending.

As a member of WAG I have to say that now is the critical time for you to take some action:

1) to arrest the rampant rates rises, 
2) to stop further rampant debt borrowing, and 
3) to try to recover some community respect before the October elections.

Regards

Philip Jacobs
On behalf of the Whakatāne Action Group

© Scoop Media