Almost $50 million has been spent in nine months on Rotorua Lakes Council projects, just over $19m of it on the Lakefront, performing arts centre and aquatic centre redevelopments.
The council has also achieved 54 per cent of its key performance indicators in the past six months. About 39 per cent "need improvement" according to the council.
A report prepared for the Rotorua Lakes Council operations and monitoring committee meeting today by council finance business partner Michelle Overbeek said the council's capital expenditure was $49.9m at the end of March, with capital revenues at $12.2m.
It said $10.4m had gone to the Lakefront redevelopment, $5.3m for the Sir Howard Morrison Performing Arts Centre and $3.4m was spent on the Aquatic Centre.
A further $8.5m had gone on roading and drainage, $5.6m towards sewerage renewal, including a CCTV survey of the network.
The remainder was "spread across numerous smaller capital programmes", which cost an average of about $.5m each.
Overall the council was tracking ahead of budget in March by $706,000, with a deficit of nearly $6m. All but two expenditure areas out of six - depreciation and finance expenses - were in the red but revenue was up against the budget, including almost $1.5m in rates and almost $1.7m in grants and subsidies.
Council corporate planning and governance manager Oonagh Hopkins also gave an update on the non-financial performance of the council for the last six months of 2020.
Her presentation showed of 55 performance measures, the council achieved 32.
Fourteen - 24 per cent - needed attention and nine would not be met. Four were not measured, which Hopkins' presentation stated was because "of changes to legislation and the availability of the data source".
One of those was measuring the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the district and another was measuring transactions in the CBD, which had proved cost prohibitive, she said.
The method for measuring GDP had changed so GDP in Rotorua looked lower than the national average her presentation said. The change had affected all councils, she said.
Rotorua Lakes Council corporate planning and governance manager Oonagh Hopkins. Photo / File
"It's no longer a good benchmark for us."
Only one measure was achieved in the area of community leadership, and Hopkins' presentation noted an increasing number of complaints about the ease of access to information on the council's website.
Cycleway targets were also slightly below target, she said.
The council achieved all of its targets in sport and recreation, sewerage and sewage, stormwater and drainage, and water supplies, according to Hopkins' presentation.
Council operations in emergency housing should be public, councillor says
Cr Reynold Macpherson asked operations manager Jocelyn Mikaere if there would be an operational report on emergency housing, but was told "not at this stage".
Deputy mayor Dave Donaldson asked chief executive Geoff Williams if he could advise on "whether or not we would be providing an operational report in respect to emergency housing when we're not providing it."
Chief executive Geoff Williams shook his head no.
Committee chairwoman councillor Tania Tapsell said the council was not in the operational business of providing emergency housing.
"However I do want to take Cr Macpherson's point on board. We have been given updates where possible and where needed on housing."
She said if Macpherson had any urgent questions on housing then she would be happy to accept them in the confidential section of the meeting.
Rotorua Lakes councillor Reynold Macpherson. Photo / Andrew Warner.
But Macpherson said the progress made on housing "as a practical matter" was "of great interest to the public".
"The emergency housing description under our strategy indicates there's a working group at work and my question then is, has that translated across the operations yet?
"If it has, what's the nature of those operations? It's not part of the operational report."
Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick said Tapsell had answered the question "entirely appropriately".
"Councillors have been updated in confidential on the work that we're doing in partnership with iwi and government, and will be notified when the time is right."
