Waipa District Council signs off 10-Year Plan

26 June 2012

Waipa District Council today formally adopted its 10-Year Plan 2012-22 which will see an average rates increase of 4.3 percent for the 2012/13 year.

This is 0.6 percent lower than the 4.9 percent average increase signalled in the draft plan that went out for consultation in March of this year and is $2.9 million less than the rates revenue proposed for the 2012/13 year in the previous long term plan, which was adopted in June 2009.

Chief executive Garry Dyet said the adoption of the plan was the culmination of two years hard work to bring integrated planning together.

The final result was an average rates increase of 4.1 percent across the 10 years of the plan. This meant the increases were limited to the predicted Local Government Cost Index plus 0.6 percent, much lower than the LGCI plus 3 percent cap the council had set.

Mr Dyet said the Local Government Cost Index was used in the place of the Consumer Price Index as it more accurately reflected the cost increases faced by Local Government.

The LGCI plus three percent cap had been set to cover two key projects in the plan when increases were expected to spike.

These projects were the development of the Cambridge Pool and the upgrade of the Cambridge Wastewater Treatment Plant.

However, in 2018/19 the introduction of water meters would see a change in charging for treated water away from rates to a user charge. An additional 0.3 percent, averaged over the period of the plan, would be needed from rates revenue if this was not the case.

Audit director Clarence Susan said a clear audit report with no qualifications had been provided following review of the final plan.

He complimented council and management on their preparation, consultation and presentation of the document.

He said the financial component of the plan had been based on international financial reporting standards and it was quite clear the cash the council received was being spent and that it was not overcharging its ratepayers to create surpluses.

There had been a good effort made in spending the majority of money on infrastructure but there was still some for the things that made Waipa a nice place to live, such as the library and museum projects.

It was prudent for the council to have debt and ensure intergenerational equity, he said.

*Intergenerational equity is where loans are raised to fund an asset and the costs are spread over the life of the asset to ensure ratepayers fairly meet the cost for the period they have the use of it.