Regional council sets its $124m budget
Spending to improve flood protection in the Waihou and Piako river zones features among the $124 million Waikato Regional Council annual plan budget.
The annual plan was released recently by the regional council.
It contains a range of measures to support community safety, including an estimated extra $530,000 for depreciation funding after a recent three-yearly revaluation of council assets.
This primarily relates to the Waihou and Piako rivers, which saw heavy rainfall and flooding earlier this year.
There is also extra spending on the Waikato Civil Defence Emergency Management Group, including a new group recovery manager and establishment of a new operations centre.
A total of $500,000 will also be spent on work around the Waipa River catchment over the next year.
The work will help protect water quality and will be completed with the Waikato River Authority and the Waikato Regional Council.
Other big ticket items include spending on the first stages of the Healthy Rivers Wai Ora plan change, for the Waikato and Waipa rivers.
The budget has $1.68m set per cent over the previous four years, with the higher rate for next year reflecting new cost pressures such as increased depreciation for essential flood protection assets.
‘‘This annual plan shows that, working with others, we have a strong focus on boosting regional performance further whilst continuing to provide services that support communities, business, farming and other sectors.
‘‘We will do this while keeping tight control of costs,’’ said Mahuta.
The budget contains $140,000 for two full time incident response staff to replace temporary staff, allowing for the maintenance of current levels of service in responding to the likes of public complaints about environmental pollution incidents.
‘‘All up we feel we have developed a sound package for 2017-18,’’ said Mahuta.
‘‘A big task for us over the coming year will be deciding on how we can sharpen things even further over the life of the 2018-28 long term plan.
‘‘To this end, we are committed to working closely with partner iwi, other councils, government agencies, farming, business, environmental groups and the wider community to make the mighty Waikato the best it can be.’’