Mahe Drysdale: Tauranga's mayor looking for solutions to improve council's books

Tauranga's mayor is hoping some of the public have suggestions of how the council can balance its books. 

A Government-imposed rates cap means, from 2028, councils will only be allowed to increase rates 4 percent at most. 

Tauranga Council is forecasting a 5 to 11 percent annual rise.

Mayor Mahe Drysdale says it's already cut $38 million, but it isn't sure where more to cut. 

"The big items are things like depreciation, interest - if you build infrastructure and you borrow money, those costs effectively just come out the next year."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bread and bread Rich Totaling a city council is going
to ask residents which services they want to catch. When
their rate cap comes in twenty twenty eight, councils will
only be allowed to increase rates by four percent a
year max. And totong is current long term plan is
forecasting an increase of between five and eleven percent a year.
So the council has agreed to do public consultation. Marhy

(00:22):
Drysdale is the mayor and joins us now, mah, good evening.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Good evening. Good to speak to you.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
And to you too. So can we first of all,
I know what the first thing that total and residents
will say. They'll say, cut your coffee budget and move
out of your nice flash digs.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, that's right. Look, we're looking at every cost and
we're taking cost out wherever you can. But you know,
if you look at this year's capital budget, that has
a rates increase next year of six percent, and that
is just interest and depreciation. So if we're building infrastructure
that has an operation and you know, so we're going

(01:02):
to have to not only cut cut costs just to
get down to the four percent, but we're going to
have to start looking at, you know, potentially services that
we're no longer going to be able to deliver if
we're going to live with now within within those targets.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
What would you because you've been elected mayor, right, what
would you you cut?

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Look, it's it's hard because you know, as I said,
we've we've cut the easy things. We took thirty eight
million dollars out of our budget and the past twelve months,
so you know, the easy stuff's been done, and now
we've we've actually got to start looking at at services.
There's not there's not a good option. I think that's
really the key. There's there's things that you'd say maybe

(01:45):
aren't core services, you know, supporting community organizations, helping you know,
deal with with some of the homeless people, things like that.
I think they're quite important services to deliver our community
because it's what they want. And how much of these
sort of things we're going to look at?

Speaker 1 (02:03):
What's your overall budget.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
We spend about this year is around five hundred and
ninety million dollars.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Right, and so you got rid of thirty eight so
dropping the ocean and that what your services, your community organizations,
your homeless stuff. I'm assuming that's going to be a
fraction as well. What are your big ticket items that
you would be looking to cut to actually make this work?

Speaker 2 (02:26):
You reckon, Well, I guess where we have been looking
is and what we have done. A lot of that
thirty eight million is around personnel costs, consultants, you know,
those those sort of big ticket items. But you know,
as I say, we've done a lot of that and
we're doing more. We're looking at all those those costs.

(02:49):
But you know, then then you know, the big items
are things like depreciation, interest, those costs if you build infrastructure,
you borrow money, those costs effectively just come out the
next year. So you know, those are things that we
we can't control. So outside of that and those personnel costs,

(03:09):
then then we're we're starting to start to scrape the barrel.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Really, how many staff have you got.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
At the moment. We've got about twelve hundred.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Stuff wow, for total on the city council. And how
many do you think you should have or how many
do you actually need?

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well that all comes down to what services you want
us to deliver. So you know, that's that's the conversation
that we're we're now got to have so to deliver
the current services. You know, that's that's probably around the
right number. But you know, if we're prepared to stop
doing things, then then we can cut that, you know,

(03:48):
a lot, a lot further.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
All Right, I appreciate your time. Maha Drysdale, mayor of
TOTO on they are going out for consultation to find
out what residents, what rate pays, think they should cut
to get under the rates cap. For more from Hither
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