Bay of Plenty Regional Council posts $10m deficit

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council has ended the year with a $10 million operating deficit.

The council’s annual report for the year ended June 30 2022 shows the operating deficit was $3.9m higher than the budgeted deficit of $6.1 million.

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council adopted the audited annual report at a meeting on Thursday.

Chief financial officer Kumaren Perumal told the meeting the council delivered its work programme with an operating expenditure of $158.4 million compared to a budget of $163.7 million, which is $5.3 million lower than budget.

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Perumal said the council achieved a total operating revenue of $148.4 million against a budget of $157.7 million.

“That’s resulted in a deficit that’s higher than budget.”

The council also delivered a capital work programme of $18.5 million, he said.

According Perumal’s written report, the capital works budget was $34.6 million, so the council spent $9.3 million less than what was budgeted.

This was partly due to the impacts of Covid-19 and material shortages, the report said.

Also, the Waioeka wetland project worth $2.5 million was discontinued and the funding was proposed to be reallocated across other climate readiness projects.

The council’s investment arm, Quayside Holdings, paid a dividend to the council of $40 million which helped to reduce general rates by an average of $348 per property in the region, said the annual report. Quayside is the majority shareholder in the Port of Tauranga.

From a non-financial perspective, the council achieved 32 out of the 44 key performance measures it set out for 2021/22.

One of those not met was its target number of visitors to the Pāpāmoa Hills Regional Park and Onekawa Te Mawhai Regional Park. The goal was 121,635 visitors but throughout the year there were 102,250.

The key reason for the reduction in visitors was the roadworks on Te Puke Highway limiting access to the Pāpāmoa Hills regional park, according to the report. Traffic coming from Mount Maunganui could not access the entrance for the duration of the roadworks from mid-February to late March.

The Covid-19 alert level contributed to the reduction in the number of visitors in August 2021, the report said.

Another measure not met was to increase trips on public transport from the previous year. There were 2.25 million trips taken on public transport in the 2021-22 year and 2.66 million in 2020-21.

The 15.4% decrease was due to Covid alert level changes and the Omicron outbreak in early 2022, said Perumal’s report.

A shortage of bus drivers also meant the Tauranga network moved to a weekend timetable at the end of February and Rotorua ran a weekend timetable during March.

Some of the measures achieved included improving air quality and visitor satisfaction for people that went to regional parks. The goal was to have 75% visitor satisfaction and 98% was achieved from the 254 respondents to the survey.

The council also accomplished its maritime operations goals. One of these being that 95% of oil spills in Tauranga were responded to within 30 minutes. There were 31 oil spills in Tauranga and the council responded to all of these within half an hour.

Every local authority’s annual report must be audited before it is formally adopted.

Audit New Zealand audit director Leon Pieterse told the meeting the audit went “really well”.

“We completed the audit and we are ready to issue an unqualified audit report on the financial statements and statements of service for performance,” he said.

An unqualified audit report means the financial statements and statements of service present fairly and were transparent.