Councillors seemed satisfied with explanations from staff regarding a $500,000 cost overrun for the district's new kerbside rubbish and waste collection schemes.
Rotorua Lakes Council met yesterdayfor a meeting of its Operations and Monitoring Committee where the council's chief financial officer Thomas Colle and transport and waste solutions director Stavros Michael explained how the unbudgeted $500,000 for additional "transition costs" came about.
"Overall, the new kerbside collection is going extremely well, the cost of the service itself is within contract and within budget ... but we have incurred some other costs and those costs were around making sure the transition has been smooth," Mr Colle said.
He said because roll-out of the service was delayed, a contract extension was approved for Rotorua Contracting to provide rubbish collection services, that included the lease of a new rubbish truck to cover the failure of one of the old trucks.
The council's new waste collection operation, which also includes the landfill, recycling centre, litter management and transfer stations, replaced the old brown paper bag rubbish collection service on October 31.