The ‘Adjusting the Sails’ report says Lower Hutt residents are over-served on things like swimming pools, compared to similarly-sized councils. Photo: DAVID UNWIN / The Post
Hutt City Council cannot continue to wield the axe on staffing numbers to cut costs and would need to offload some of its assets to improve rates affordability, according to a new report.
The recently released report, Adjusting the Sails, listed three variations of a new operating model for the council to cut costs. Chief executive Jo Miller said the report did not make any decisions but provided an evidence base for councillors.
At different degrees, all involved incorporating more artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies, adjusting service levels, selling off "surplus" assets and handing over some things like swimming pools for community providers to run.
The report said rates jumped by 33 percent between 2023 and 2025. The amount of owed rates tripled since 2019, leading to the conclusion that many households could not afford those levels of rates increases.
The council had cut $55 million in recent years across long-term and annual plans, and it had ran out of things that would have limited public impact to chop. "We are at the point now where savings will need to come through a fundamental review and a change in the services we provide and assets we own," the report said.
Its analysis showed while the council employed fewer people per 1000 residents than its neighbours in the Wellington region, each Lower Hutt resident had more libraries and swimming-pool space compared to similar-sized councils.
Although having more libraries and pools supported "strong community access and amenity", they were more expensive to run and maintain. To meet a potential 4 percent rates cap imposed by the government, the council would need to slash about $24m annual spending by 2034.
Mayor Fauono Ken Laban told Local Democracy Reporting that the council's rising costs did not stem from overstaffing but from keeping its assets running. It would be up to residents to decide what they wanted for council services and facilities.
"I haven't seen a report of that level of detail before," he said. "We're living beyond our means and I think there are some pretty clear indications, especially for the government with rates capping, that the absolute priority for all of us is to get back to basics and this is the beginning of that conversation.
"We need a framework. We need some conversations and we need some direction from the community as well."
Early documents for the council's next annual plan showed an $840,000 financial hole for Lower Hutt's swimming pools - contributed to by "unavoidable" rising power and water bills, and it was an example, Miller believed, of council assets whose future residents should discuss.
"Do we need the amount of pools that we have? That's a conversation to take place in our community because we know you will never get the cost of a visit to a swimming pool covered by the price," she said.
"We can stick our heads in the sand, or we can say how are we going to adjust what we do."
Lower Hutt councillors agreed at a Friday council meeting to spend $2m for the first year of a change programme, with a possible $4m available in the next two years.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
