As 2024 came to an end, it was encouraging to see business confidence on the rise, signalling better times may be ahead for many. That said, it’s also clear New Zealand’s economic recovery will be slow, so ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ may still be some way ahead.
While we wait for visible signs of growth to flow through into business cash flows, Tauranga City Council elected members and staff will be working hard to ensure rates costs have as little impact as possible on your bottom lines. To achieve this, we have to find a balance between progress when addressing Tauranga’s pressing infrastructure and community amenity needs, while making prudent, fair and affordable financial decisions for all ratepayers.
Details still have to be finalised, but we will need to consider changes to the plans laid out in the council’s 2024-34 Long-term Plan, via our 2025/26 Annual Plan. As we work through this over the next few months, it will be vitally important that business and residential ratepayers become involved and help us make good decisions on the community’s behalf.
Work on the draft 2025/26 Annual Plan is already under way. To guide the process, councillors have identified some guiding principles recognising that, in the current economic environment, important choices will have to be made about how we prioritise our investment and spending. While staying within our financial constraints will be hugely important, we will still look at a record infrastructure spend, which reflects projects already in progress and the need to press on with some other investments required to address transport and housing needs.
Despite the positive signs I’ve mentioned, many businesses are struggling and want to know they will receive good value from their rates payments. That means our annual budget must be affordable and everything we do has to deliver outcomes and quality services that will benefit us all.
We are aiming for a balanced budget, capping average rates rise at a maximum of 12.5 per cent, as set out for 2025/26 in the Long-term Plan. This means council will need to find significant operational savings of $25-30 million.
So, what are the guiding principles that will take us towards a balanced and affordable budget? In summary, they look like this:
- Looking after what we have
- Everyone pays a fair share
- Ongoing financial, economic, social, cultural and environmental sustainability
- Affordability
- Robust and transparent financial analysis
- Growth pays for growth
- Value for money
There’s a lot of detail sitting behind these headings, but for the sake of clarity, ‘value for money’ means achieving the most advantageous combination of cost, quality and sustainability, as well as the efficient, effective and economical use of resources to achieve the best possible outcomes for the city.
An indicative annual plan was reported to council in December and elected members have provided direction about what’s required to bring together the draft annual plan we want to present to the community. By March, we’ll have a consultation document which details the options involved and we will be seeking your feedback regarding what is most important for Tauranga.
This annual plan will be, very much so, a ‘peoples’ plan’ and we’ll be looking to create some fresh and simple ways for people to become involved. So, please engage with this process as it unfolds – your input will help us find the ‘sweet spot’ between affordability and progress.
