​Council defers LTP and opts for 2024-25 Annual Plan

The Central Otago District Council (CODC) will defer adopting the 2024-34 Long-term Plan by 12 months and has opted to prepare an Annual Plan for 2024-25.

At the Council meeting today in Alexandra (Wednesday 28 February), the Council considered options provided by the Government in the delivery of the Long-term Plan (LTP), under the advice that they could adopt the 10-year long plan as usual by 30 June or delay up to 30 September 2024. However, the Government proposed another option that gave councils around New Zealand the ability to defer the LTP by 12 months and in the interim, prepare an Annual Plan for 2024-25, to fulfil public consultation, budgetary and auditing requirements.

This option was recommended to the Council at today’s meeting because it gave staff the ability to build-in yet to be determined costs such as water supply, sewerage and stormwater. It also meant being able to incorporate New Zealand Land Transport Authority (NZTA) funding for roading projects, also unknown at this stage, into the LTP next year.

The Council was conscious of the fact that the regular striking of rates and invoicing cycle would remain the same as previous years under this option too.

Consultation on the Annual Plan would begin at the end of April and run for one month. The Annual Plan will be adopted by the end of June.