Rates increase in Tararua District main issue at Community Board

Dannevirke Community Board: Ernie Christison (left), with mayor Tracey Collis, Pat Walshe, Terry Hynes, council CEO Bryan Nicholson, democracy manager Allie Dunn and Ron Wallace at last year's swearing in. Photo / Supplied

Members of Dannevirke Community Board were divided over the proposed rates increase in the 2023/24 annual plan with two members agreeing to a 13.18 per cent rise as part of a submission to Tararua District Council.

“I don’t want them going up at all,” member Ron Wallace said.

At a meeting earlier this week, council group manager corporate Raj Suppiah outlined the context to the proposed annual plan and items the council was consulting the community on.

He explained the council did a long-term plan every three years and the last one started in 2021.

Year two was the current year and year three was the proposed annual plan for 2023/24.

Suppiah said when there were significant changes to the long-term plan, council would consult with the community and that was the case with the proposed annual plan.

Council would normally go through a series of workshops and work out what some of the changes were or the outcomes they wanted to achieve in the annual plan.

“The annual plan is to reflect the current reality; what has changed for us in terms of priorities.”

Rates was the main topic of discussion at the meeting. Photo / Laura Smith

Suppiah explained the process which saw an initial rates increase proposed at around 20 per cent reduced to 16.72 per cent.

He told the board members the amount of the proposed increase would allow the current level of service.

However, recognising that the increase would be unaffordable, they looked at what else they could do to lower it and came up with reducing depreciation funding.

Council would put aside money every year to fund asset renewals and could adjust depreciation in the long-term plan to manage the rates impact, although that tended to be a small amount.

“For this annual plan we are underfunding just over $1 million,” Suppiah said.

“However, recognising that in underfunding depreciation, it also means that at some stage we need to recover this amount and also top up the depreciation.”

Questions were asked about the council’s debt levels and Suppiah said in the annual plan a year-end debt of $73 million had been forecast.

The cost to the council in the proposed annual plan was $2.5 million, while under the current annual plan it was $1.7 million.

While council was able to borrow through the Local Government Funding Agency, at a rate lower than the market rate, that was also a risk depending on the market.

Questions were also asked about the impounded supply and whether the forecast debt included work being done on Dannevirke’s dam.

There have been ongoing issues with the dam, also called the impounded supply, since a leak was discovered in July 2021.

Last year, the council approved just over $1 million to be spent on planning for repairs to the dam.

Suppiah said the cost of the whole project had not been figured into the proposed annual plan and there were several phases to the project.

The first phase was to establish a pre-treatment plant so the impounded supply could be decommissioned and the issues investigated.

Wallace said he was asked by members of the community about the dam and wondered if it was being prioritised.

“There’s a lot of work going on in the background,” Suppiah said, adding that a workshop was due to be held where the programme of work would be looked at and decisions made on options.

“All of this we expect to happen within the next three months.”

Councillor Sharon Wards said there had already been feedback from the community saying they didn’t want future generations to have to deal with debt.

She said they had the option with the long-term plan to look at the levels of service.

“We make some calls about what we cannot do to be able to cut the cost.”

However, those were discussions that had to happen under the long-term plan process, not the annual plan, due to the fact there were long-term implications.

Wallace said the community was “living a champagne lifestyle on a poor man’s wage.”

“It’s got to change.”

Wards said that was the message the council was getting, but reiterated that such discussions could only be done during the long-term plan process.

Member Ernie Christison said the levels of service were already going backwards.

“It may be time to make a choice.”

He said he had put in reports on issues that needed to be addressed but was told there was no money in the budget.

Wards said there had been 78 submissions so far which had either ticked a box or commented.

The board was encouraged to make its own submission.

“We should be demonstrating to the community that we are consulting on their behalf,” she said.

The members were equally divided on the options.

Christison said the council needed as much money as it could get, considering the state of the infrastructure.

He said there were many ratepayers who, with their incomes, couldn’t afford a rise in their rates.

“It wouldn’t matter how much it went up. There’s that much to do.

“We need to have an affordable rate rise but we need as much money as possible.”

Wallace said they were getting hassled all the time from people who didn’t want either option of 16 per cent or 13 per cent.

Christison agreed saying that from his social responsibility as a community board member, it needed to be as little as possible.

“I think we need to look at how carefully the money is being spent.”