Rotorua Lakes Council keeps asking people with "nothing" for more money, one councillor says. Photo / Laura Smith
Rotorua Lakes Council keeps asking people with "nothing" for more money, one councillor says. Photo / Laura Smith
Rotorua Lakes Council has reduced the proposed average rates increase for the 2026/27 Annual Plan to about 6.8%, following deliberations at Wednesday’s council meeting.
The most recent prior projection had the council tracking for a 10.8% rise, but staff identified $3.5 million in efficiency measures to bring this to 8.4%prior to the meeting.
After unanimously backing those changes, the council agreed a mix of cost-cutting and budget shifts to take about another $3.1m out of the plan and reach a 6.8% rise.
These included capping the staff pay-rise budget and leaving some vacancies empty, which was expected to impact some council services.
The decisions were debated for more than three hours, with two motions initially lost and clear tensions between reducing costs in the short term and managing longer-term impacts on services and finances.
Where did Rotorua Lakes Council find the extra $6.6m?
$3.5m in efficiency measures;
Reduced funding on depreciation in parks and open spaces by $1.6m for one year;
Cutting $467,000 from staffing costs by leaving some vacant roles unfilled;
Limiting staff pay-rise budget to 2%, saving about $500,000;
Removing $500,000 set aside to explore becoming a unitary authority, work to be done within existing budgets;
Not funding an additional $100,000 for reviewing new Government legislation, with that work also to be absorbed within current budgets.
Councillors ultimately agreed to retain $130,000 to review services and fees ahead of the next Long-Term Plan, despite opposition from Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell.
“I am extremely frustrated that we requested savings and now have a couple of items that have extra cost coming in,” Tapsell said.
The councillors ultimately agreed to retain $130,000 to review services and fees ahead of the next Long-Term Plan, despite opposition from Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell.
“I am extremely frustrated that we requested savings and now have a couple of items that have extra cost coming in,” Tapsell said.
Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell. Photo / Laura Smith
She said her workload had increased amid proposed local government reforms, but she was not asking for additional support.
“You will see my car still here late at night. You will still see me online late at night,” she said.
“Because we are doing all we can in perhaps a year of uncertainty and challenge, but that is what we do.”
She supported the use of staff vacancies to find savings and pushed to limit the staffing budget increase to 1%, which would have saved a further $500,000.
That proposal was unsuccessful, with councillors later agreeing on a 2% increase.
Tapsell said the decision was “very hard”, particularly in a public forum, but that the council needed to reduce ratepayer burden as “much as possible” amid “political and economic” uncertainty.
“It is about fairness to the community, not just our staff,” she said. “People are really struggling.”
Deputy Mayor Sandra Kai Fong said “times are tough” and everyone needed to “tighten their belts”.
Councillor Don Paterson said it was important the council was seen to be sticking to its promise to keep rates down.
“The economic situation our people are facing right now is really dire,” he said.
Rotorua Lakes councillor Don Paterson. Photo / Laura Smith
“I personally am struggling, and I am not saying I am on a small wage, but I have nothing in the bank. So think of the people who are worse off than I am.
“They have nothing, yet we keep asking them for more money.”
Councillors Gregg Brown and Merepeka Raukawa-Tait supported the 2% increase, describing it as a compromise.
“Our staff are also ratepayers and live in our community as well,” Raukawa-Tait said, calling the public deliberations over staff salaries “uncomfortable”.
Councillors Robert Lee and Ben Sandford opposed a number of the additional savings measures.
Lee said the council was paying the price for previous decisions.
“We are trying to squeeze blood out of a stone and blood is not there to be squeezed,” he said.
He described reduced depreciation funding as “kicking the can down the road”.
Lee said it was important to ensure adequate funding remained for future work, including unitary authority investigations and service-level reviews.
Sandford said asking staff to do more with fewer resources placed the workforce in a “vulnerable position”. He described the approach to depreciation as “not good financial management”.
“It’s a sugar hit we will need to pay later on.”
Rotorua Lakes councillor Ben Sandford. Photo / Mathew Nash
The council determined the changes were not significant enough from what was outlined for the year in the current Long-Term Plan to require community consultation on the 2026/27 Annual Plan.
In total, more than $6m in savings were identified.
Council chief executive Andrew Moraes later confirmed to Local Democracy Reporting that the extra savings brought the proposed rates increase down to 6.8%.
Council figures show much of the increase is driven by water and transport services.
The cost savings come against the backdrop of a proposed 4% rates cap from the Government, although that would not include water-related rates.
Water makes up 2.4% of Rotorua’s rates increase, putting the council slightly above the proposed cap.
Staff will now prepare the final Annual Plan for adoption in April, ahead of the statutory June deadline, when the 2026/27 rates will be finalised.
Mathew Nash is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. He has previously written for SunLive, been a regular contributor to RNZ and was a football reporter in the UK for eight years.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
