Six-figure sum to buy time for maintenance
Waikato District Council is spending almost $980,000 to buy time.
The money spans three separate extensions to a maintenance contract for building, electrical, plumbing, drain laying and gas fitting.
It expired in November 2017, but council is stretching it out while it does a massive stocktake of assets – down to the bulbs in sports park lights.
That information is essential for a shift to planned maintenance which gets in before things break, staffers say.
Several councillors were frustrated with the latest request for $291,000 – bumping the approved contract sum up to $2.7m.
The extra money was approved with some opposition, and Mayor Allan Sanson warned there could be ‘‘blood on the floor’’ if another deadline was missed.
Councillor Jan Sedgwick wasn’t happy with the process – and said the jump in the figures was a bit eye-watering too.
‘‘We’ve been in this situation before. ‘Give us extra money and we’ll take it to this point’,’’ she said at Tuesday’s meeting.
‘‘I don’t believe it’s acceptable to keep rolling and rolling and rolling and not go out to market.’’
The contract expired on November 30, 2017 and has had two extensions – and associated increases of $259,000 and $428,000 – since then. The $291,000 on councillors approved was the third.
That will cover maintenance until June 2019, and staffers hope to award the new contract by late April.
Council needs time to get itself in a better position, Sanson said, but that must happen within the given timeframe.
If not ‘‘I think there will be some blood on the floor’’.
The money is budgeted and would otherwise have been spent on other work in the coming seven months, councillors heard.
‘‘All we’re trying to do here is to buy some time to work through the process properly,’’ chief operating officer Tony Whittaker said.
It’s important that council clearly articulates what it’s buying, he said, as that’s been a problem in the past in terms of holding contractors accountable.
The new contract will move on from reactive maintenance – ‘‘basically, wait until something breaks, then we fix it’’ – parks and facilities manager Megan May said.