Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule says the Local Government Commission has confirmed it will provide an analysis of Hawke's Bay councils' debt levels as part of the next phase of the amalgamation process.
Mr Yule wrote to the commission this week requesting information on debt be included in its updated proposal on the possible merger of the region's local authorities, due to be released before the end of the year.
He said yesterday the commission had agreed to do so.
Napier Mayor Bill Dalton, a staunch opponent of amalgamation, this week released figures extrapolated from Napier and Hastings council reports to highlight the different debt levels between the two local authorities.
He followed that up yesterday with an updated table after Hastings District Council made available its draft annual report for the 2013-14 year.
Mr Yule said while it was accepted Hastings had more debt than Napier, he was unable to check Mr Dalton's figures through his council's finance staff yesterday given it was a public holiday.
Napier City Council has virtually no debt with external lenders and charges interest on money it borrows internally, whereas Hastings has significant external debt but does not charge interest on internal borrowing.
Direct comparisons of total debt costs are complicated by the different accounting practices and the two mayors agree that a uniform approach to accounting methods across all councils would have benefits to ratepayers.
"That's one of the reasons why I went to the Local Government Commission - to make sure they do provide this information in an impartial way for the people of Hawke's Bay to decide on," Mr Yule said.
"We compare very well nationally, both at rating and debt levels. The difference in debt issue can be easily resolved through a ring-fencing arrangement."
Under a ring-fencing arrangement, if amalgamation went ahead, residents in today's different council jurisdictions across the region would continue to be levied for the debts incurred by those councils.
Mr Dalton said by charging interest on money borrowed internally, Napier City Council was able to preserve the "buying power" of money it set aside for specific projects which were not started immediately.
"Even though we are paying interest it is to ourselves," he said.
"To us, it preserves the integrity of the funds and the purpose for which they were put aside. It's a conservative but sensible way of doing things."
Mr Yule said Hastings District Council used "a different treatment".
"We argue it's the ratepayers' money anyway, we can hardly charge them interest on it. Neither way is right or wrong - they're just different."