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Scoop
3 days ago
- Business
- Scoop
Council Adopts Annual Plan Budget
Marlborough District Councillors adopted the Council's annual plan budget for 2025/26 today, with an average rates increase of 8.61%. Mayor Nadine Taylor thanked Council staff for their work to bring rates down from the Long Term Plan forecast of 10.62%. 'Council's core spending remains strongly focussed on providing infrastructure, including roading, flood protection, waste management, water supply and community facilities. 'The increase is made up of a number of elements outside Council's control - depreciation at 3.23% and local government inflationary adjustments at 3.3%*, which add up to 6.53%. We are also still paying for the Covid Rates Relief fund applied during the pandemic to help ratepayers, the cost of which is spread over three years, with an impact of 1.5% per year.' 'Roading and footpaths are the biggest item of Council capital expenditure with $64M allocated this year for improvements and renewals. Included in this figure is $29M to repair and rebuild the storm damaged Sounds roading network, on which work continues at pace. It's especially pleasing that the Sounds roading repairs are ahead of schedule and under budget.' 'Thirty one million dollars is allocated to three waters infrastructure, with $16M going towards flood protection and community facilites.' She said the annual plan included $6.5M for building flood protection works in Spring Creek and at Conders Bend, Renwick, provided through the Government's Kānoa Regional Infrastructure Fund. 'As we experienced again in the past few days, our stop bank network is critical to the safety of the communities who live beside the Wairau River. I want to assure everyone that the budget is in place for the necessary stop bank rebuilds and repairs.' 'Council's capital expenditure budget for this year has increased to $119M, including the Sounds roads recovery. As a result, projected debt is $154M at the end of June 2026, as opposed to $190M forecast in Council's Long Term Plan (LTP) last year.' 'I'd like to thank the 89 people and organisations who made the effort to give us their feedback via the new streamlined engagement process. Your ideas covered many topics including community facilities, parks and open spaces, regional development, animal control and roads.' 'Councillors referred some ideas to the Long Term Plan Working Group for further consideration and confirmed a $40k annual museum operating grant to the Marlborough Historical Society.' A record of the councillors' public feedback discussion can be found in the Economic, Finance and Community Committee minutes of 18 March 2025 on Council's website. Public consultation also recently took place on charges for the Bluegums landfill and the consequential impact on charges at transfer stations. An average increase of 17.82% will be applied to fees at the Blenheim landfill and transfer station, meaning the average trailer load of waste will cost an extra $5.92 to dispose of. Councillors received the draft annual plan budget at its 8 May 2025 meeting and supported three small levels of service requests for the 2025-26 financial year, including replacing the air conditioning system at the Marlborough Events Centre. Councillors declined requests to fund a part time Welcoming Communities Coordinator role and a full time librarian position to cover the loss of 1.5 FTE fixed term positions. The Marlborough Library in Blenheim will therefore reduce its opening hours by five a week, closing at 5pm rather than 6pm on week days. Weekend opening hours will remain the same. Note: The BERL Local Government Cost Index (LGCI) is a measure of the change in costs for goods and services purchased by local government in New Zealand, similar to the Consumer Price Index. BERL (Business and Economic Research Limited) provides this index to councils, which is used to forecast price and cost movements, including for major expenditure items like bitumen and water pipes.
Scoop
08-05-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Council Receives Draft Budget For Annual Plan 2025-26
Marlborough District Councillors received the draft budget for the Annual Plan 2025-26 at a meeting of full Council today. For the coming financial year beginning 1 July 2025 a draft average rates increase for Marlborough ratepayers was presented of 9.42 per cent. With a small number of essential levels of services increases supported including payroll and human resources systems (0.01%), communications (0.06%) and Marlborough Events Centre air conditioning system upgrade (0.03%), adding a further 0.10%, this brought the proposed total draft average rates increase to 9.52 per cent. This is less than the 10.62 per cent originally signalled in Council's Long Term Plan. Further work will now be done to refine and confirm the draft budget prior to its adoption by full Council on 26 June. Mayor Nadine Taylor thanked the public for submitting their ideas through the Annual Plan feedback process earlier this year. 'We gave a strong signal when adopting last year's Long Term Plan (LTP) budget that times are tough right now for everyone including Council and there is very little spare funding around. Council's bottom line has been under significant pressure in recent years, particularly since the two severe rain events that hit Marlborough in 2021 and 2022.' 'The main reasons for this year's increase are the impacts of depreciation at 3.46%, inflationary adjustments at 2.5%, and a further insurance cost increase of 0.75%; all of which add up to 6.71%. These factors are largely outside of Council's control but they have to be accounted for in our budgets,' Mayor Taylor said. 'We are also still paying for the Covid Rates Relief applied during the pandemic to help our ratepayers, the cost of which we decided last year to spread over three years with an impact of 1.5% per year.' Depreciation is the gradual loss of value of an asset over time due to wear and tear. In financial accounting, depreciation spreads the replacement cost of an asset over its useful life. Mayor Taylor thanked Chief Financial Officer Geoff Blake for his diligent work in reducing the draft average rates increase from the 10.62 per cent forecast for this year in the LTP and noted the concerted effort across Council to contain costs as much as possible. Council's forecast net debt has also been reduced to $147M, a reduction of $43M on that forecast in the LTP. Mayor Taylor said almost all the money budgeted in the draft Annual Plan was earmarked for core infrastructure, with $117M allocated in capital expenditure for the coming year. While the bulk of it covered roading, including $29M relating to the recovery of the storm damaged roads in the Marlborough Sounds, $31M is allocated to to three waters infrastructure and a further $8M would go toward community facilites and flood protection. 'Our core projects include work on water supplies around the district to upgrade pipelines, pump stations and water treatment to ensure we meet national standards,' Mayor Taylor said. 'Roading and footpaths are the biggest item of Council capital expenditure with $64M allocated this year for renewals and improvements. Included in this is the $29M to repair and rebuild the damaged Sounds roading network, work on which continues at pace.' Last year $8.7M was allocated by Council for the Spring Creek stopbank repairs project with funding support provided by the Government as well. This previously approved $8.7M is also reflected in the draft Annual Plan.
