Raj Suppiah (pictured in 2014) says the council had held a number of workshops and robust discussions over the proposed rates increase in the draft annual plan. Photo / NZME
Raj Suppiah (pictured in 2014) says the council had held a number of workshops and robust discussions over the proposed rates increase in the draft annual plan. Photo / NZME
Tararua residents will be able to have their say on the proposed rates increase over the next month.
The increase, part of the Tararua District Council's draft annual plan, was proposed at 11.37 per cent.
An engagement document would be available for members of the community to talk over thedraft annual plan at round two of the 'Super Consultation' and would also be available through council offices.
In a meeting of the council this week, group manager corporate Raj Suppiah told councillors that in the past, the council's rate increases had been around 2 per cent, stemming from the 2015-2016 financial year.
He said in 2018, the increase was around 4 per cent.
The decision was to drop the increase to 2.5 per cent that year, but now the council was seeing the impact of that decision.
"[And] part of it was the combination of what we started to see coming. And things that were unknown started to be known. And this year I guess is a continuation of that," Suppiah said.
He said the other context behind the proposed increase was the changing landscape where costs were increasing.
"One of the costs is interest. We have significant increases in interest of over $700,000 in 10 years. We talked a lot about compliance and regulatory space which has changed significantly for us.
"Standards have increased, new standards have been introduced. Those costs are significant, not just from the investment point of view, and I think from the resource, not just in terms of staff, to meet those conditions."
The council had held a series of workshops and robust discussions over the rates and much consideration had gone into the budget.
"We looked at our revenue stream. We took a major step forward which is in fees and charges, trying to reduce the impact on the rates and try to go more towards a form of user-pays scheme. In this plan, you'll see a significant increase in fees and charges. Especially in the water, regulatory and waste space."
One of the changes between year one of the long-term plan and the annual plan was in employee benefit costs, which increased from $7.1 million in year one of the long-term plan to $9.5m in the draft annual plan.
Councillor Peter Johns pointed out that while there was a large increase, it was offset by a reduction in contract costs as contracts were now brought in-house and it was employee costs rather than contracts.
Suppiah said one example of that was the IT team, which had previously been outsourced but was now in-house.
"We could look at it that staff costs had increased significantly but we have shifted one way from contract costs to staff costs. We also have the reverse where building officers, we are now contracting out, so there's pluses and minuses, but the net effect of those changes is there's a shift from contract costs which is operational costs to staff because we've brought the team in-house," he said.
The workshops had also discussed the impact of the rates at length.
Suppiah said there had been some variance in the distribution of the rates impact, which meant some ratepayers saw a much bigger difference in their percentage increase.
He said that was mainly driven by valuation changes.
However, for some ratepayers in rural areas, the rates impact would be below the 11.37 per cent mark.
Tararua District Council's second round of super consultation will allow people in the community to talk about the proposed rates increase. Photo / NZME
The proposed increase was higher than rates limits set in the council's financial strategy and the council was preparing an engagement document along with supporting information to engage with the community.
