Horowhenua Mayor Bernie Wanden says the district council needs to make financially sustainable decisions.
Horowhenua Mayor Bernie Wanden says the district council needs to make financially sustainable decisions.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s speech at the Local Government New Zealand conference last week contained a clear message to local councils – “stop wasteful spending” and get back to the basics.
For Horowhenua Mayor Bernie Wanden that isn’t a new direction.
“We are definitely doing that and have been for some time. When we worked on our last LTP [long-term plan], a few years ago, we said then it was about the basics and core service delivery.”
The delivery of those core services is “paramount”, said Wanden.
“And I see the libraries and aquatic centres as being core services, too.”
If the last LTP took an austere approach to budget lines, the most recent LTP, adopted in June this year, was “even more so”, said Wanden.
“Our message to the community [during consultation] was not just that we are not adding anything new, but we asked them what could we do without.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon delivers his speech urging local councils to "stop wasteful spending” during the LGNZ conference in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The focus, said Wanden, was on being able to meet the costs of capital expenditure, meeting legislative requirements, the changes to three waters and other mandated council reforms or requirements. Councils are also facing an increase in costs around interest, depreciation, insurance and utilities, he said.
“We needed to find efficiencies anywhere we could.”
A line-by-line approach to the budget helped find some efficiencies, he said, with a council restructure resulting in “around a 7 to 8% reduction in operational costs”.
Elected members had tasked the chief executive with finding savings, said Wanden.
Library hours were reduced and urban berm mowing was stopped in other budget cuts, ending with a 16.6% rates increase this year.
That number, said Wanden, wasn’t great, but was a lot lower than it could have been.
Part of the problem, he said, was the need to “catch up” on some costs.
“Over the years, I think all councils have been guilty of debt-funding things or not funding depreciation correctly. We can’t keep doing that.”
Horowhenua had to invest in the future, he said, and make financially sustainable decisions.
“We’re the 10th fastest growing district in the country at the moment, we’ve got to maintain an infrastructure network ... that we can handle that capacity into the future.”
Luxon’s speech also talked about a lack of transparency in local government. He said unelected officials prevented elected members from accessing information they needed in some cases and called for more transparency for ratepayers.
In Horowhenua, said Wanden, it was “absolutely not the case” that elected members were not given relevant information.
“We have a very open and transparent relationship between our governance and operational sides of things.”
Council held numerous workshops as well as meetings, all of which were open to the public, he said.
Wanden said while the PM had announced plans to remove four wellbeing provisions in the Local Government Act, he didn’t feel that was going to change much regarding service delivery in the Horowhenua District.
“They are words on a page. I strongly believe we, as councils, are doing the best we can for our communities. we understand what they need, and we will always do our best to do it well.”
Where possible, said Wanden, elected members and council staff work to access relevant government funding to help.
