Council ends its financial year in the black

How the $600,000 will be allocated hasn't been decided yet

The New Plymouth District Council is sitting on a $13.6 million surplus from the last financial year, but that doesn’t mean there will be a big street party, mayor Neil Holdom says.

This is all about accounting, he said. ‘‘In terms of real cash there is $600,000 cash surplus. The rest of it is about the saving of projects, so there’s not $13.6m sitting there let’s go and have a party.

‘‘We planned to spend money on projects and the money will probably be spent this year.’’

How the $600,000 will be allocated hasn’t been decided yet, but the council will consider a couple of options, he said.

‘‘We have an emergency response fund to deal with things like the damage caused by the high rainfall event we had three or four weeks ago and we were asked to consider putting the funds to that.’’ Or they could pay off debt. NPDC’s revenues were up on the budget forecast and spending was on target at $130m, according to its draft annual report which was independently audited by Audit New Zealand.

The biggest chunk of the $130 million was $21 million spent on roads and footpaths, followed by $15.2m on parks and $13m spent on regulatory services.

The council’s managed assets are valued at $2.5 billion and international credit agency Standard and Poor’s confirmed NPDC’s financial rating as AA/A1 in October 2016, the highest possible ranking for local government.

Acting chief executive Alan Bird said the credit rating was one of three main highlights of the 2016/17 financial year.

‘‘The award from travel publisher Lonely Planet announcing Taranaki as one of the top two regions in the world to visit was another, thanks to decades of sustained investments from councils.

‘‘And many hours of listening and conversation have resulted in the creation of Te Huinga Taumatua, our new iwi-NPDC governance partnership committee.’’

Bird’s other highlights included: a comprehensive community discussion on proposed focus areas as a prelude to engagement on the 10-year work programme called the Long-Term Plan; the council’s decision to develop a waste reduction and education facility on Colson Rd to reduce the district’s waste volume; the water master plan to manage the district’s water supply, and the government approval of the council’s funding application for the next nationwide roll-out of ultrafast broadband, which will include Waitara, Inglewood, Urenui and Okato.