LTP consultation delayed until later in March pending audit

Amendments have been made to the draft 2025-34 Central Otago District Council Long-term Plan (LTP) documents.

As a result, the consultation period has been delayed from the original proposed start date of 19 March until the end of March for Audit New Zealand to carry out its due diligence.

Since the Council last met on 29 January 2025, staff had discovered an error in the budget in the draft consultation document that had caused a discrepancy in figures. An extraordinary meeting of the Council was held today (Friday 14 February 2025) to consider the changes to the document, financial model and statements, and development and financial contributions policy. Some of the amendments needed to be brought back to Council, therefore delaying the documents being presented for audit. The biggest change was to the water section of the LTP draft document.

Currently, all water services are managed by the Central Otago District Council (CODC), and the Council has been exploring opportunities in the future to collaborate with neighbouring councils. However, since the January meeting, the CODC had obtained information from the Waitaki District Council, which had gone through the audit process, therefore the Council had re-written the section “What’s our plan for water” based on the information received.

There was also a need to amend the three waters operational budgets, brought about because of proposed changes to the water services contracts, with the current single maintenance contract split into separate reticulation and facilities contracts. The changes to this budget had also necessitated a change to the development and financial contributions policy. The two factors combined had resulted in the average draft rates increase changing from 11.63% to 14.03%, CODC chief executive Peter Kelly said.

Mr Kelly said he took full responsibility for the budgeting error and commended the team in catching it early.

If it had been detected later in the process during the consultation it could have had a greater impact, and as result, the Council would be able to present the auditors with the correct figures, he said.

The community would be asked to give feedback on nine key items when the consultation opened. These can be viewed on Let’s Talk: What's important Central Otago: 2025-34 Long-term Plan | Let’s Talk Central Otago

Having been reassured that measures were in place to prevent future errors, Central Otago Mayor Tamah Alley said she was looking forward to going out and talking to the community and would be encouraging them to submit their feedback.

The Council has adjusted its meeting timetable to accommodate the later audit and plans to open the consultation following the meeting on 26 March 2025.

More details of the LTP amendments can be found here: Agenda of Extraordinary Council meeting - Friday, 14 February 2025.