Council ‘lifts bonnet’ on budget
Spending at Christchurch City Council is about to go under the microscope as it looks to curb ongoing rates increases.
Rates have grown at what many describe as unsustainable levels for years and council’s new chief executive Dawn Baxendale, who started in October, is embarking on a wide-spread budget review to ensure the organisation is running as efficiently as possible.
As part of her ‘‘root and branch’’ budget review, she hopes forecasted rate increases will reduce.
In 2018 the council signalled a 50 per cent increase in rates over the next 10 years. Last year the council was able to reduce the predicted increase of 5.5 per cent to 4.79 per cent, but that was still too high for many. Another 5 per cent increase had been predicted for the coming financial year, but the exact figure will not be confirmed until June.
Baxendale said the review would look at how the council was spending its money and what it was spending it on.
‘‘Fundamentally, my job is to enable our organisation to be more productive and more
Dawn Baxendale, Christchurch City Council chief executive
efficient and more cost-effective. If you’re not going to look at the budget how are you going to determine that? It’s just a normal practice in my world.’’
The review was not about cutting jobs, she said.
Baxendale did not want to say how much money she was looking to save.
‘‘It will be up to elected members to give their direction. We will be giving them options.’’
When asked if she was looking at cuts to capital projects, Baxendale said she was not suggesting that but the capital programme would be reviewed as part of the 2021-31 Long Term Plan (LTP), which would come out next year.
Age Concern Canterbury chief executive Simon Templeton said it was good to see Baxendale casting a new lens over the budget.
He said many older people were on fixed budgets and did not want rates to go up as much as they have been, but at the same time they were also heavily reliant on council services and did not want to see them cut.
Baxendale said she was doing the job she was expected to do.
‘‘If you are running a public authority with public money, you should be looking about how you can do that to your best ability and maximise all of your resource. And when I say resource that means your people, your technology and how you procure. You do those things well, you get a better run organisation.’’
The budget review would be completed by June this year so it could feed into next year’s LTP, but it would not be in time for the the 2020/21 draft annual plan being approved for consultation on February 11.
Baxendale said she had done this type of review before with successful results.
‘‘I have managed two major organisations through very challenging financial situations, which Christchurch City Council is not in comparison, so I absolutely know we can get the information we need.’’
When she became chief executive at Southampton City Council in the UK in 2013 whe was faced with a $200 million financial hole at a council with a $650m budget. In two and a half years, she closed the hole and got money out of the system for elected members to reinvest.
Ratepayers owe the $22m in overdue rates.
‘‘I have managed two major organisations through very challenging financial situations . . .’’
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