What has Council done to reduce the rates increase?

Proposing a significant rates increase at any time, but particularly now, is not a decision that was made lightly. Council members and staff have looked hard for savings. The original figure we consulted on was 17.4% and Council has agreed to a number of further changes to reduce that to an average of 16.6%.

Changes we made included: 

• making the decision not to renew our Alliance contract for water services and to bring the water services work back in-house
• we have re-prioritised our capital programme to rephrase work to reduce some of the cost burden right now.

We also:

• re-evaluated everything from scratch, scrutinising our operational costs line by line and exploring every opportunity to make significant reductions.  Rather than use the previous year’s budget as a starting point and adjust, we started from $0 (zero) and worked out what we are expecting to ensure it most accurately reflects that.  
• included a careful review of our fees and charges to ensure a balance between user-specific service payments and the general rate funding.

Despite that, the average rates increase of 16.6% is still much greater than we’ve seen in the past but is required to ensure our borrowings do not exceed our limits, so we can continue to deliver Three Waters services and we are financially sustainable into the future. 

We also made changes to a number of services, including reducing opening hours at community centres, increased parking fees and some other fees.  For the detail of the changes, please see our Community voice plays a major role in Council's LTP Deliberations media release