It's increasingly likely Tauranga City Council will adopt its Annual Plan late, for the first time in at least two decades, and maybe ever.
The delay was due to a need to adjust budgets to the latest possible information about the economic impact of Covid-19.
The council already has a draft Annual Plan out for a month-long community consultation closing on May 3.
The plan has a 7.6 per cent average rates rise, hastily slashed down in late March from a previously agreed 12.6 per cent.
In a Finance, Audit and Risk Committee meeting Tuesday, the council acknowledged significant changes to that plan would likely be needed, resulting in another round of community consultation.
The committee's independent chairman, Bruce Robertson, told the Bay of Plenty Times the likelihood the council could complete that process by the legal deadline of June 30 was "marginal".
Robertson, a former assistant auditor-general who works with several councils, said the prospect of delaying plan adoption was an unusual situation but one many councils were facing.
He said a delay would usually be considered acceptable if it would allow for better financial forecasting for the benefit of the community.
Robertson understood it would be the first time Tauranga did not meet the June deadline.
A council spokesman said it would definitely be the first time in the past 19 years, but could not confirm past that at short notice.
Robertson said an Annual Plan was essentially a forecasting process, and councils needed to have reasonable certainty their assumptions about the future were accurate.
"This year, that has not been at all possible. Councils have to be confident they have the best information possible and circumstances are changing daily.
"The last four weeks have shown that what was planned in that document [current draft Annual Plan] is unlikely to occur."
To predict the post-Covid situation, councils would need to ask questions as broad as whether there had been changes to growth pressures, consumer patterns, the state of the commercial sector or ratepayers' ability - even whether contractors were still in business.
He said the council needed balance between not being "tone deaf" to the community's position, and the Government's call to keep spending to help stimulate the economy post-alert level 4.
The council has submitted $1 billion worth of shovel-ready projects for Government economic stimulus funding consideration, and another $3 billion from a collective of Western Bay councils and iwi.
Councils have been told to expect information about the next steps in that funding process in early May.
Council staff have estimated a drop in expected revenue next year of between $40 million and $77m compared to the current draft budget.
Without government funding, that could knock anywhere from a fifth to half out of the council's planned $244m capital investment programme.
The $77m scenario included a zero per cent rates rise many in the community have clamoured for, but that would shave off $13m revenue.
Council staff were working to investigate options that could shape the final plan.
Infrastructure general manager Nic Johanasson said hundreds of capital projects were being assessed to see what could be "mothballed", reduced or otherwise altered.
Other teams were assessing council services to understand what would be needed under different alert levels, and what funding or resourcing could change.
Tauranga Chamber of Commerce chief executive Matt Cowley said the council should delay setting the budget to July 31.
"Council needs time to develop a comprehensive Covid response plan."
He said there was no unified business view on what level commercial rates should be set, but all businesses would want the council to demonstrated it recognised all Covid-19 impacts.
"Any additional revenue from commercial rates should be focused towards speeding up growth-related infrastructure projects."
In his view, a rates freeze would create issues in future years when the economy was expected to recover. Councils played a "critical role" in moving money through the local economy through service contracts.
Papamoa Residents and Ratepayers Association chairman Philip Brown said more than 1000 people had backed the group's proposed zero per cent rates increase - 93 per cent of those surveyed.
The comments indicated many were concerned about the council putting so much money towards funding future growth through greenfield development.
If the council redrafted the plan, it should take note of submissions already made in the process.
Council corporate services general manager Paul Davidson told the Bay of Plenty Times 88 submissions had been received so far.
They would be taken into account during any redrafting and retained so people could still be heard if there was a second round of consultation.
"We value the hard work and thinking that's gone into the submissions."
The council did not have a firm timeline for when it would adopt the plan if delayed, but was working to late July as an indicative date.
• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website
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