New direction for council’s LTP
Today Ōpōtiki District Council will post the papers to be discussed at the ordinary council meeting on Tuesday 19 March. One of those papers shows a change of direction for council’s draft Long Term Plan, lessening the likely impact of cuts to services such as events and Te Tāhuhu o Te Rangi.
Ōpōtiki Mayor, David Moore, said that the Long Term Plan to be approved for community consultation had shifted and moved through the development process but he was confident that it walked a fine line between necessary savings and community services.
“The debate around the council table through this LTP process has been extensive. Together, councillors are balancing the need to reduce the rates burden on our communities but also continue to provide vital services. In the current environment, it simply costs more to do less and we have had to make some pretty tough decisions about where those cuts could be made.
“At the same time, we have seen a lot of passion from parts of the community on the topic which is great to see. Special thanks to Ashbrook School children who came into council to talk about how important Te Tāhuhu o Te Rangi is to them. Thanks also to the Deputy Mayor Shona Browne who welcomed them on behalf of council. It was an opportunity for them to see local government in action and see what sorts of things councils do.
“Over the last few weeks, we have heard from many people through formal and informal channels how vital these services are to them. We have adjusted the direction we want to take in the LTP to try and find necessary savings elsewhere. Particularly where they are less heavily felt by those who rely on Te Tāhuhu o Te Rangi and our tourism services and events,” Mayor Moore said.
The Mayor explained that these savings would still be felt by the community as reductions in levels of service. This is because council had already earmarked savings in other areas such as delaying depreciation and revaluation, and limiting spend on capital works and still not kept rates rises to the increase councillors had tried hard to achieve.
The new direction means that rather than reducing hours at Te Tāhuhu o Te Rangi or isite, the same savings can be made by reducing the day-to-day operating budget across engineering services. This may mean being less responsive to non-urgent operational and maintenance issues. Because less funds will be set aside for emergency repairs, if they are needed, they will be “unbudgeted spend” and will need to be built into the costs for the following year.
“To keep rates rises to a minimum we know we will need to reduce the services council offers. In this case, we made the decision to change how we carry the cost of the unknown – that is, we change our risk profile.
“We will discuss this further at out meeting next week and we will approve the direction and budget for staff to work to. They will use that to develop a draft LTP document for public consultation in June and July. That is a great time for people to have their say and I encourage you to sign up online so you get a reminder when submissions open,” Mayor Moore said.
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