WRC reinvests Covid-19 surplus and raises rates
A Waikato Regional Council operating surplus of nearly $3 million is being blamed on the 2020 Covid19 lockdown.
The surplus was referred to, but not explained, in a January 29 announcement of a 7.3 per cent rates rise for year one of the council’s 10-year-budget, where councillors also directed staff to spend
$50,000 from the prior year operating surplus to develop sustainable homes programme.
Waikato Regional Council (WRC) chief financial officer Janine Becker said while the surplus was a result of Covid-19 imposed restrictions on work the council was able to carry out, it was also a targeted initiative by the council to create some reserve that could be
a directed to the regional economic recovery in the wake of the pandemic, and advance progress towards the council’s strategy.
Of the $2.7 million surplus, Becker said about $2.3m had been reinvested into projects such as:
• covering the operating deficit of the Waikato Civil Defence Emergency Management Group resulting from the Covid-19 response;
• funding to investigate koi carp management;
• support for the Rural Support Trust;
• additional funding for Te Waka, the regional economic development agency;
• funding to undertake a Public Transport Business Improvement Review;
• funding to investigate a Sustainable Homes Programme.
The year 1 budget proposes a rates increase to existing ratepayers of 7.3 per cent.
Becker said an estimated 2 per cent of the increase was because of the extra work Waikato Regional Council must do to meet the Essential Freshwater requirements announced by the Government last year.
The sustainable homes scheme was a ‘‘massive shift’’ from anything the council had done before which could have a huge impact on the well-being of people of the Waikato – if it got public support, WRC chair Russ Rimmington said.
The council is looking for partners in a scheme intended to retrofit homes making them healthy and efficient places to live. The overall rates rise would be less than $1 a week for 77 per cent of its ratepayers, Becker said.