Deputy Mayor Nobby Clark gave the rates issue one last push in council today, before the ICC finally adopted the Annual Plan 2022-23.
He had numerous questions to ask regarding council expenditure including staff remuneration and employee costs, which was backed by fellow councillor Ian Pottinger.
The increase in wages because of the Government’s new minimum and living wage was part of the reason, and they queried why the new information hadn’t been tabled before.
Nobby said employee costs had risen between $2.5 million and $3.4 million every year, and he found it “deeply disturbing” how much was being spent on consultants, contractors and legal fees.
“Given we have staff vacancies, why are our costs still going up?” Nobby asked, telling the meeting he had asked for a breakdown of personnel costs for the past three years, and never received an answer.
But council’s strategy and policy manager Rhiannon Suter said all of the information on the wage increases was provided to the community when the annual plan went out for consultation in March. She said there had been no changes to the information since then.
Mana whenua representative Evelyn Cook made a strong firm statement that we are living in 2022 and need good quality staff who wanted to be here working for council.
Councillor Lesley Soper backed her and moved a ‘closure’ motion to adopt the Annual Plan, but not without Nobby having one last say.
“We have a whole lot of hidden costs that we just don’t want to look at,” he said.
The 2022 Annual Plan was officially adopted by the majority of councillors, with Nobby Clark, Peter Kett, Ian Pottinger and Allan Arnold all against the motion.
The rates will be struck at 6.53% for the 2022-2023 year – an increase from the 4% initially forecast.
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