From the mayor’s desk: Local government sector in for another busy year

Stratford District mayor Neil Volzke says it will be another bust year for local government, with planning underway for important document reviews such as the Annual Plan. Photo / Unsplash

After some time away from the office, it is time to face the reality of being back at work. Like others, it comes as a bit of a shock to those of us who are still trying to figure out what happened to January.

Already the Stratford District Council has had its first council meeting of the year and the diary for February is filling fast.

Re-energised or not, the local government sector is in for another busy year with planning well underway for important document reviews such as our Annual Plan review and the early stages of our Long-Term Plan review.

These key plans are heavily influenced by the impact of government policies, reforms, inflationary pressures and the interest rates we will be paying in the future. Predicting the future and setting council budgets accurately has become an art form that no one seems to have mastered.

Already the uncertainties associated with change prevail, as the Government looks set to have a major rethink about the direction they will be taking in the lead-up to the general election on October 14.

Had I been writing this column a fortnight ago, the political landscape would have included an expectation that Jacinda Ardern would be the Prime Minister through to the election, at least.

The planned Government policy refocus under her stewardship would have then been little more than a review of timelines and a trim around the edges of some policies. That sense of same old, same old is now gone.

Already, many people have an expectation of new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins to make significant changes and move away from some of the transformational policies of reform, to focus on more basic issues like the cost of living and rising interest rates.

If he does, then the trim mentioned before may become a full-blown haircut. Some policies may even be tossed out altogether and if this is the case, can I respectfully suggest that the Three Waters Reforms would be a great place to start?

Whatever changes are made, being an election year, we can fully expect that there will be a high degree of agitation and a social media-feeding frenzy as policy announcements are made by the various political parties. Policies are only words and talk is cheap, but let’s not forget, at the receiving end of these policies are real people facing real challenges and people whose lives are affected by the politicians’ decisions. It is a serious game and the stakes are high.

The policies of the government of the day have a direct impact on councils as well and they frequently cause us grief, as we try to comply with the avalanche of changes imposed upon us.

What irks me most are the myriad of policies and regulations that cost money to administer or implement, but typically come with no funding or revenue streams attached. In practice, these just become an additional cost to our ratepayers and another burden we could do without.

With rampant inflationary pressures and huge increases in construction/infrastructure costs, our council dollar is stretched and buys a lot less than what we could have bought only a couple of years back. There lies a massive challenge for councils.

How do we keep rate rises affordable at a time when inflationary pressures alone are edging us towards double-digit rate increases and how do we predict the future in unpredictable times?

Then add in some new projects, allow for growth, experience rising interest rates and the impact of more frequent weather events, and 2023 looks set to be more demanding than ever. It seems to me that a reality check is pending.