Mayors told to focus on rate restraint

Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule

A lobby group set up to keep a check on central and local government spending says it is concerned Hawke's Bay's mayors appear to be focused on "skirmishing over amalgamation" rather than keeping rates down.

The Taxpayers' Union was responding to a Hawke's Bay Today survey of the region's mayors, published yesterday, in which all four listed promoting their view on amalgamation as their first or second top priority over the next six months.

While Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule, Napier's Bill Dalton and Wairoa's Craig Little all said focusing on regional economic development was among their top three priorities for the first half of 2015, only Central Hawke's Bay Mayor Peter Butler's top-three list included the goal of keeping rate increases low.

"The Bay's ratepayers will be alarmed to learn that their local politicians appear to be more focused at skirmishing over amalgamation than delivering value for money and good services," Taxpayers' Union executive director Jordan Williams said .

He was particularly critical of Hastings District Council's plans to spend $35,000 to promote its support for amalgamation.

"It's frankly unconscionable that the Hastings District Council are using ratepayer money to fund a lobbying effort to suit its own means," he said.

"Maybe there are benefits to amalgamation, but the case should be made by chambers of commerce and community groups, not a propaganda campaign underwritten by Hastings' ratepayers."

In response to Mr Williams' comments, Mr Yule said his council's decision to set money aside for the amalgamation campaign was no different from the actions of Napier City Council which had spent a similar amount on a consultant's report which supported its stance against amalgamation.

"We're simply spending our money to explain the reasons why the council is supporting the stance it is, and we're doing that in an informative and educative way," Mr Yule said.

"It's not as if we're out of kilter here, we just haven't done anything up until now."

Mr Jordan said there was evidence that "bigger was not always better" when it came to the economics of amalgamation.

He cited a report commissioned by the Hutt City Council, which has been fighting a proposal to amalgamate local authorities in the Wellington region.

He said the Hutt City research found council costs per ratepayer could drop as the population within a local authority area grew towards 40,000 "but above 200,000 scale-inefficiency starts to bite".