City temp staff budget blows out
Nelson City Council’s spend on temporary staff is more than three times its budget as it struggles to fill vacancies.
A report to the council’s audit and risk committee stated that the council’s personnel costs were $1.24 million over budget because expected savings from vacancies were not being achieved.
“Any cost savings from vacancies have been spent on temp staff, higher duty allowances, and other staff-related costs,” the report in February said.
Information supplied to the Nelson Mail under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act reveals the council spent $794,083 on temp staff in the 2022/23 financial year - 3.08 times the budget of $257,404.
Meanwhile, for the first two quarters of 2023/24, $470,276 had been spent on temp staff - 3.59 times the $130,890 budget.
The council spent $208,197.34 on higher/extra duties allowances in 2022/23, and had spent $154,209.64 in the first two quarters for 2023/24.
In December 2023 there were 21 vacancies at the council, compared to 40 in 2022, group manager corporate services Nikki Harrison said in the response.
The budgets for temp staff and higher/ extra duty allowances were estimates, she said.
“Some vacancies are very difficult to fill due mainly to scarcity of talent in New Zealand. It is for this reason we may still hold vacancies throughout the year. We are, however, expecting to see a reduction in vacancies this year due to active recruitment processes, changes in the labour market, and an increase in staff retention.“
Meanwhile, at a full council meeting this month, group manager environmental management Mandy Bishop told councillors they were struggling to meet KPIs for resource and building consents due to vacancies.
Councillor James Hodgson asked if there was anything the council could do to help fill the roles, but Bishop replied that it was a lack of experienced applicants causing the issue.
“Even if we had all the money in the world we still can’t get people into those senior positions,” she said.
“While we are getting graduate planners to fill some gaps they do take time to get up to speed and they take time to train them. That is all we are getting at the moment.”
Mayor Nick Smith said that he’d noticed during his time at the council that it had lost many staff to central government roles.
He asked whether the new Government’s direction to reduce agencies would lead to opportunities to “proactively recruit some of those back to the team”.
Bishop said that was a situation they were actively monitoring.
“There hasn’t been a large release of staff as yet, there are contractors who everyone is assuming their contracts won’t be extended, and that normally is around May ... hopefully we’ll get some of the people back.”
The council’s manager people and capability, Andrea King, said it was difficult to fill specialised roles within some of the environmental management teams, particularly in planning and consenting.
“There is a nationwide shortage of trained Resource Management Act (RMA) planners, transport engineers and transport planners.”
More candidates on the market should help reduce vacancies, she said.
“Council also works closely with NRDA to promote Nelson as a desirable location to live and work, this helps attract high quality candidates with the skills required to match our vacancies.”