Council prepares for another big year

Ōpōtiki Mayor, David Moore, said that councillors were starting the process of shaping the Annual Plan. He said that although things were on track to broadly align with the Long Term Plan, factors that were affecting the rest of the country were being felt locally as well.

“The councillors, staff and I have started early conversations about what the coming year will look like at a workshop last week, and everyone around the table was very aware of the stresses and pressures on finances across the board.

“As with everyone else, our dollar is buying less and less these days as inflation bites. But our costs are also trending upwards as materials and resources cost a lot more than they did even a couple of years ago. Add to that more government costs like waste levies and regulation and we can see a lot of extra unavoidable expenses coming down the pipeline,” Mayor Moore said.

Ōpōtiki District Council’s Annual Plan won’t be signed off until the end of June, following a public consultation process. A council Long Term Plan outlines the community outcomes council will achieve and the activities it will fund to do so over a 10-year period. In contrast, an annual plan is a more focussed document with budgets for the coming year.

“There is still a lot of work to do to understand what we expect our finances to look like in the annual plan, so it is very early days. But by starting the conversation now, we have time to consider the information and where possible look at ways to cut costs or to fund things differently or reduce services and activities to keep rates as affordable as possible,” Mayor Moore said.