Whakatāne District Council Elected Members approved the draft Long Term Plan for audit at the Environment, Energy and Resilience Committee meeting held last Friday, 31 May 2024.
The draft plan and supporting documents are a culmination of months of work, including a series of Council workshops and a comprehensive community engagement phase. Whakatāne District Mayor, Dr Victor Luca, says it has been a very difficult process trying to balance confronting economic conditions with the needs and desires of the community.
“From the outset I have made my position on the Long Term Plan clearly known, but where we got to was the result of a democratic process”.
“The reality is that councils across the country are facing unprecedented financial challenges, including increased inflation, interest rates, and compliance and engagement costs. This is then combined with the elevated costs of delivering core services and investing in critical infrastructure."
“This has put us into a deficit that we need to balance, and it’s important that we do this in a financially prudent way while recognising that rates affordability is also a crucial factor for many members of our community, and in particular for me,” Mayor Luca explains.
The draft work programme and budget were approved for community consultation in March 2024 with an average proposed rates increase of 17.1 percent in the first year of the plan. The month-long consultation period for public feedback received almost 1,000 formal submissions from individuals and organisations. In addition, more than 80 people took the opportunity to speak to the Mayor and Councillors in support of their feedback at the oral hearings. Overall, the feedback highlighted the complexity of balancing community needs, financial constraints and strategic priorities.
Mayor Luca says he and the Elected Members reviewed all the feedback received, and spent two days in deliberations, before delivering a direction to staff about what adjustments needed to be made post-consultation.
“Staff have revised some project budgets, decreased staffing requirements and reviewed financial processes to meet best practice,” he says. “There have also been alterations to the depreciation funding system, which has meant the final average rates increase has landed at 15 percent.”
“There was a very clear message from many submitters that ‘times are tough’. We are acutely aware that there is a need to find the balance between the extremes of delivering only basic services, while planning for communities that will serve future generations.”
The draft plan and supporting documents will now undergo the complete auditing process, before the anticipated final adoption at the full Council meeting on Thursday, 27 June 2024.
More information about the Long Term Plan is available here.