Central Otago District Council staff are working weekends and long hours to catch up on crucial work for the next Long Term Plan (LTP) 2024-2034.

Project manager - Organisational Christina Martin told the audit and risk committee yesterday they were tracking behind schedule, but was confident the team could still make the June 2024 statutory deadline.

With a new Government and changes in legislation pending, councils around the country were all trying to negotiate the new environment and budget accordingly. 

Mayor Tim Cadogan has already warned rates would be up around and possibly more than 20% - like many councils around the country.

“The whole team is really flexible . . . but there have been so many balls up in the air,” Christina said.

Council’s audit and risk committee chair Bruce Robertson, who also chaired 14 other local government committees around the country, agreed the future was still too uncertain, particularly in the Three Waters space. 

It was revealed just over a week ago that the Government’s 100-day plan included the dismantling of the regime, opting to replace it with the Local Water Done Well policy.

Christina said in her report to the committee that additional resourcing in the finance team had been sourced to help get the LTP project back on track.

She said while there was a delay to the original programme, adoption of the LTP 2024-2034 by the statutory deadline of June 30, 2024 was still achievable.

Community boards would discuss the draft budgets in late January, and council would approve the draft consultation document in February, before it went out for public consultation for a month from mid-March.

Council chief executive Peter Kelly said they didn’t want to “break the camel’s back this side of Christmas,” and instead concentrate on putting more quality into the work done by staff.