Resolved  WDC 2025/060

Moved:       Cr Jeremy Holding

Seconded:  Cr Tim Blackler

That the apologies from Crs Linwood, Ryan and McCone be accepted.

Carried

4.1         Adoption of the 2025-34 Long Term Plan

The purpose of this extraordinary council meeting was to adopt the 2025-34 Long Term Plan.

Section 93 of the Local Government Act 2002 requires Council to have a Long Term Plan at all times.  It must be adopted before the commencement of the first year to which it relates (1 July 2025 in this case).

Strategy and Commissioning Lead Mandy McIntosh tabled the final version of the Long Term Plan. (A copy of this is available on request as an attachment to these minutes).

She also tabled the following minor changes to the Long Term Plan, as requested by auditors after the final draft went to councillors:

Page 36 – Changed $217m to $247m and changed $794m to $820m.

Page 69 – Footer moved for completeness.

P 116 – Change to Township Amenity – Weston and Weston flat charge.

P 117 – Changed $2,777,776 to $2,777,428.

P 131 – Changed to refer to rating units.         

P 135 – Changed total outstanding borrowings from $36 million to $34 million.

P138 – Rates affordability graph axis change to rating units.

P 139 – The table on this page showed 2035.  This has been removed.

P 165 – Roads and Footpaths figures have been updated to reflect the Financial Strategy.

The Chief Executive introduced the final version of the Long Term Plan to Councillors. He said there were some difficult challenges in providing what the community needed, while keeping rate rises to a minimum.

He thanked the Governance Team for the many hours they had spent on this, and thanked staff for their work in a challenging process. Every part of the council budget has been scrutinised in detail. It has been very difficult.

Mr Parmley also thanked the auditors for their work.

Dereck Ollsson from Audit New Zealand then spoke about the challenges caused by the three waters proposal.

He outlined two matters raised in the audit opinion, namely uncertainty over water service delivery and uncertainty over third party funding for the Waitaki Events Centre. (A copy of the audit opinion was tabled and is available on request as an attachment to these minutes).

The following minor changes were then requested by Cr Hopkins and agreed to by Mr Ollsson:

On page 57 it says council will consult on the option of delivering kerbside collection in the future. This is to be amended to consulting on either maintaining the status quo for curb side rubbish collection or delivery.

Page 164 suggests kerbside collection is a fact but this is not correct as no vote has been taken. The word “possible” to be added. This is also mentioned on page 185, with no change requested to this page.

Page 186 says the key assumption was that the Resource Management Act would continue as the primary mechanism for resource management over the life of the plan, being nine years. Councillor Hopkins questioned this. Mr Parmley said the government’s plan to implement changes to the Resource Management Act was a six year plan. A statement was to be added to the Long Term Plan to say that the government may change the RMA in the term of the Long Term Plan.

Cr Blackler was surprised that the suggestion of rates capping hadn’t been addressed. The council has opted for unfunded depreciation in some areas and he was concerned that if rates capping was introduced and benchmarked against this LTP, council would not be able to make a change to its approach on depreciation.

The Chief Executive said while Council was constantly scanning the horizon, it could only respond to what was currently happening. There was no formal proposal for rates capping at this stage. He was unable to reflect rates capping in a LTP with no formal proposal.

The Mayor noted the 9.44 percent final average rates rise was not wanted by anyone but was less than other Otago councils.

Cr Blackler said he would abstain from voting because he believed he had shared a concern that needed to be understood and addressed. He did not agree with the approach to unfund water depreciation for two years as part of the water transition programme. He also did not agree it was prudent to have an unbalanced budget in year two of the plan.

Cr Thomson said he would be voting against adopting the Long Term Plan due to a philosophical position he held regarding the problems that councils have with the imposition of work without reimbursement from central government. He said council had trimmed the budget to the point that it has posed risks to the community going forward, if there was an emergency situation.

Cr Hopkins agreed that the way local government was funded in NZ was broken. Central government should be coming to the party and paying for unfunded mandates. However, if everyone voted like Cr Thomson, the only people being penalised was us.

The Mayor spoke in support of the Long Term Plan. He said we don’t know all the answers. Legislation is changing almost by the day. We live in an uncertain world and the only thing we can do is have certainty over what we do - which is the Long Term Plan.

The resolutions were considered and a minor change was made to number 7, with the words “and minor changes as approved by council” added.

Cr Blackler abstained from voting and asked for this to be recorded in the minutes.

Resolved  WDC 2025/061

Moved:       Chairperson Gary Kircher

Seconded:  Member Jim Hopkins

That Council:

1.       Confirms the following minor matter that supports the 2025-34 Long Term Plan and Rates Resolution:

a)      Confirm the Selected Owner Dog Fees effective from 1 July 2025 at the corrected amount, to align with the Policy.

2.       Rescinds Resolution WDC2025/002:

That Council:  

Resolves that it is financially prudent to adopt an initial unbalanced budget for each financial year of the term of the draft 2025-34 Long Term Plan, noting that during the deliberations the Governance Team and Officers will develop a balanced budget for the Long Term Plan;

3.       Resolves that it is financially prudent of Council to have an unbalanced budget in Year 2 of the 2025-34 Long Term Plan, under section 100(2) of the Local Government Act 2002.

4.       Notes the level of rate increase indicated each year of the nine year term of the 2025-34 Long Term Plan as set out in Attachment 1.

5.       Receives the Audit New Zealand report on the 2025-34 Long Term Plan, to be tabled at this meeting, and notes that the report is included in the 2025-34 Long Term Plan.

6.       Adopts the 2025-34 Long Term Plan, to be tabled at this meeting, pursuant to section 93 of the Local Government Act 2002.

7.       Notes that officers may make final minor changes and corrections to the 2025-34 Long Term Plan prior to the printing and publishing of the document, subject to audit clearance and minor changes as approved by council.

8.       Notes that the 2025-34 Long Term Plan must be made publicly available within one month after the adoption of the Long Term Plan.

9.       Delegates authority to Council’s Chief Executive, in consultation with the Mayor, for officers to make any necessary final non-material changes and corrections to the 2025-34 Long Term Plan prior to legal deposit

.Carried

4.2         Resolution to Set the Rates for the 2025-26 Rating Year

The purpose of this report was to set the rates for the 2025-26 financial year in accordance with the Local Government Act 2002, the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002, and Council’s 2025-34 Long Term Plan.

Strategy and Commissioning Lead Mandy McIntosh tabled a new version of the rates table, with several corrections as requested by Audit New Zealand. This is reflected in the resolution below.

Moved Hopkins/Holding

Carried.

Resolved  WDC 2025/062

Moved:       Cr Jim Hopkins

Seconded:  Cr Jeremy Holding

That Council:

1.         Agrees to set the rates and due dates for payments, and to authorise the penalty regime for the 2025-26 year commencing 1 July 2025 and ending 30 June 2026, in accordance with the information contained in the 2025-34 Long Term Plan as set out below.

            All amounts are GST inclusive and the rates in the dollar are shown per $100 of value.

Instalments

Rates, except metered water rates, will be collected by four equal quarterly instalments due on the following dates, or the first working day after this date.

Payments will be applied to the oldest debt first.

Metered Water Rates

Actual consumption of water by meter will be billed based on meter readings undertaken quarterly and will be due for payment on the following dates, or the first working day after this date.

Payments will be applied to the oldest debt first.

Penalty Regime

As authorised under section 58(1)(a) of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002, an additional charge of 10% of any amount of an instalment or metered water charge that remains unpaid after the due date for that instalment or metered water charge will be added on or after the 25 August 2025, 25 November 2025, 25 February 2026, 25 May 2026 and 25 August 2026 respectively for each instalment of rates or metered water charge.

As authorised under section 58(1)(b) of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002, a further charge of 10% of any amount of rates or metered water charges that remain unpaid from previous financial years will be added on 7 July 2025, being five working days after this resolution.

In addition, as authorised under section 58(1)(c) of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002, a further charge of 10% on any amount of rates or metered water charges that remain unpaid from previous financial years will be added on 7 January 2026, being six months after application of the previous penalty.

Council confirms that all matters that can be delegated under section 132 of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002 are delegated to the Chief Executive, Director Support Services, and Rates Supervisor.