WDC budget handling criticised

A BUDGET decision came under fire during the Waitaki District Council’s first public workshop last week.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the council approved carrying forward incomplete works from the 202122 financial year, totalling $19.8 million, for the assets group. A report said the work would be added to the current capital delivery programme of $57.2 million, creating a total delivery programme for the 202223 financial year of $77 million.

But at Tuesday’s activity update meeting, Cr Jim Hopkins questioned the reality of being able to spend $77 million in the capital delivery programme, when the council had failed to spend its capital budget in the previous financial year.

The report said it was difficult for staff and contractors to meet existing service levels, due to pressures including inflation and uncertainty about the availability of materials.

There would need to be a tradeoff between the work delivered and service level expectations to try to solve the ‘‘budget misalignment’’.

Cr Hopkins wanted to know when the council was going to sit down and have a rigorous look at the issue.

‘‘The notion of doing $77 million of work this year, you’re telling us it’s unrealistic,’’ Cr Hopkins said, indicating the report.

He did not follow the logic of creating the same problem in the new financial year by carrying forward money the council could not spend.

Acting assets group manager Paul Hope said he challenged his managers to come up with a realistic programme ‘‘about what can be developed, what can be advanced, and what really needs to be deferred’’.

Developing the carry forward list for next year was important, as was having a robust discussion with the incoming council about where things stood for the annual plan.

Cr Melanie Tavendale said the unpredictability of events needed to be considered when looking at the capital spend.

‘‘If you look at the three weather events that recently arrived bang, bang, bang and the amount of workload that created, it takes time for staff to work out what that means before going back to the work programme,’’ Cr Tavendale said.

‘‘I think we need to realise we live in a human environment with some interesting factors.’’