Local business owner Rodney Joyce has put his name forward to become Mayor of the Western Bay District Council, standing on a platform of lower rates and greatly increased transparency at the council.

“Almost everyone that I speak to in the district is unhappy with the very high, and continually rising, rates burden and are frustrated that their concerns are not being listened to,” says Joyce, who is also standing for election to the Katikati-Waihī Beach district council ward.

“When I looked around the candidates standing for Mayor of Western Bay, I saw largely a continuation of current policies.  I did not see anyone addressing the biggest issue for residents and ratepayers over the next ten years – our sky-high and (still) rising rates burden.”

Even a modest home in the Western Bay now attracts rates of $60-$70 a week, ranking Western Bay’s residential rates consistently among the highest in the country.

Joyce believes further big increases are ahead, unless real change is made at the council.

“Our council is on the road to even higher rates as it comes up with more and more plans to spend money, despite its current budget already being squeezed tight by rapidly rising construction costs, higher general inflation and rising interest rates.

“Something is going to have to give and that means the next mayor and council will have to either rein in council’s grandiose spending plans or push rates much higher to cover all its dream projects and the extra staff needed to build them.”

The council’s annual plan shows it plans to borrow a massive $56.5 million this financial year. To put that in perspective, that one year’s worth of gross borrowing is equal to about 60% of the council’s rates income.

“On its present trajectory, council will soon be shelling out over $12 million a year in loan interest, at current interest rates (with further interest rate rises forecast to come).

“That is enough to build two libraries a year but, if it sticks to its current strategic plan, the council will be too busy paying off debt to be able to invest much in any new community assets.”

Why is Joyce so obsessed with the numbers? He was a financial journalist/editor for Reuters, the international news agency, for 18 years. He came back to New Zealand six years ago and purchased a wholesale business in Katikati.

“My partner and I love it here. We are regulars on the beach at Waihi and we’ve put down roots,” he said. A new baby was born last year.

Joyce was born in Taranaki but his family links in the Western Bay go back around 80 years, including Christmas holidays visiting family in rural Katikati and Te Puke.

With a background of more than 30 years in journalism and management, Joyce is a firm believer in transparency in council matters. As a journalist, he has reported on councils in Auckland, Wellington, Hawkes Bay and Taranaki.

“One thing that has changed in recent years is that more and more council business is conducted behind closed doors at “workshops” that the public are not even told are going on,” Joyce says.

“We need much more openness to the public both in council discussions and also in the way it carries out public consultation – which many residents believe is currently geared to pre-determined results.”

When I looked around the candidates standing for Mayor of Western Bay, I saw largely a continuation of current policies. I did not see anyone addressing the biggest issue for residents and ratepayers over the next ten years – our sky-high and (still) rising rates burden.

It seems like almost every week now the council comes up with new ideas on how to spend our money, often without funding in place. And the only place it can get funding is from us, through ever higher rates.

Recently, I met a widow with health issues living in a modest 2-bedroom home in the Western Bay. She was in some distress about the pressure she is under from the council to catch up on her overdue rates. She has grown up in our community for decades but simply cannot afford her $70 a week in rates ($3,700 a year).

Similarly high bills are faced by ordinary people all over our district, including if you rent. Typically, $60 or so in each tenant’s weekly rent is going to the council (via your landlord).

Remember, our residential rates were among the highest in the country, even before last year’s big hike.

Even worse, our council is on the road to even higher rates as it comes up with more and more plans to spend money, despite its current budget already being squeezed tight by rapidly rising construction costs, higher general inflation and rising interest rates.

This year’s council finances have been flattered because it has deferred millions of dollars in projects until after the election. Also, its plans are lagging because it simply does not (yet) have the capacity in place to shovel out the money fast enough to meet its lavish spending plans.

Something is going to have to give and that means the next mayor and council will have to either rein in council’s grandiose spending plans or push rates much higher to cover all its dream projects and the extra staff needed to build them.

With no other candidate focused on our rates burden, I have put my name forward for both mayor and district councillor (Katikati-Waihī Beach ward) in the upcoming local elections.

I came a close second in last year’s Katikati-Waihī Beach Ward by-election and many people have urged me to stand again. Frankly, I would rather focus on my young family and my business.

But the council’s amazing spending plans (it plans to borrow another $56.5 million this financial year alone) mean that waiting another three years would leave ratepayers and residents with an even more precarious council.

Remember, it is only two years ago that the council was gradually investing in new assets for our district and yet still paying off a bit of debt each year. What changed is that our council has decided it wants to build everything at once.

On its present trajectory, council will soon be shelling out over $12 million a year in loan interest, at current interest rates (with further interest rate rises to come).

That is enough to build two libraries a year but, if it sticks to its current strategic plan, the council will be too busy paying off debt to be able to invest much in any new community assets.

It will be the worst of both worlds and the only happy people will be the rich investors making money off our council’s high debt burden and our associated sky-high rates.

Do you own a holiday home in the Western Bay and want to vote in this year’s local elections? Property owners who pay rates on a property but live outside the district can get one vote as well (“no taxation without representation”).

However, you need to confirm your raterpayer vote registration every three years and, so far, only around 180 people are on the ratepayer roll for the whole of the Western Bay. The deadline to register is this Friday so don’t miss out on your say, by one of the following means:

1) You should have had a confirmation letter asking you to confirm you still qualify. If you filled that in and returned it you are on the ratepayer roll. If you missed it, call the council on 0800 54 8683.

2) You can do a fresh enrolment through this link.

For more details see this page on the Western Bay District Council website.

This is not just for holiday homes. It also applies to commercial premises, rental properties – any person, company or trust that pays rates but is based outside the district.

Note that Friday is also the deadline for ratepayers/residents on the main roll too. Local residents should have received an “orange guy” letter from the electoral office to confirm any changes in address, if needed.

Any registrations after this Friday will have to be done by special vote, which is a more complicated system.

Don’t miss out on your say in this year’s council elections - enrol now!

The Western Bay District Council is only increasing residential rates by a median 2.65% this year (2022-23), which is a remarkable turnaround from last year’s 11.5% increase – or is it? The situation is a lot more worrying once you look under the hood.

The first clue that all is not well is that the council has, since its draft annual plan issued three months ago, increased forecast spending by $6.6 million this year while trimming the rates increase back slightly. How can this be?

The council is still chronically overspending. It just plans to borrow more – leaving an even bigger interest bill for ratepayers and residents to pay for in coming years as both the debt and interest rates rise fast.

The council plans to increase net borrowing over the next year by $41.5 million – that is three times as much as in the just completed year and is sharp turnaround from its policy of paying off debt each year that it had previously. To put that in scale, the council’s annual borrowing will be almost half of the rates take in this financial year.

Note that the council’s debt is currently a bit lower than forecast but this is largely because it has struggled to shovel out the cash fast enough on its enormous pipeline of promised capital projects. It simply does not (yet) have the staff to manage the huge spending splurge mandated by the mayor and councillors.

It’s election year so the question should be, are these rates figures sustainable or has the council just deferred a bigger increase until after we vote? Here are some other key points from the 2022-23 plan that the councillors/mayoral candidates don’t seem to want to talk about:

1) The planned 3.92% overall increase is heavily weighted to benefit urban residential properties. Once again, the council has targeted rural properties with much higher increases. It seems to have a multi-year programme to increase rural rates without telling anyone. Lifestyle block rates are rising a median 5.72%, dairy farms 7.22% and orchards 6.69% - versus a median 2.65% for residential properties this year.

2) The planned increase in spending would be much bigger but the council has deferred projects worth around $21 million due to “timing issues” – so these will come back into play in future years. Despite these delays, spending on capital projects has still doubled in the past two years.

3) Three numbers strongly suggest this year’s modest rates increase is not sustainable. Firstly, the council’s budget is based on an inflation forecast of 2.9% a year. Inflation is currently running at 6.9% a year so it has not fully accounted for cost increases.

4) The second big hole in the budget is that council borrowing costs are rising fast. It is currently projecting a 12 percent jump in average borrowing costs (4.25% vs 3.80%) due to higher interest rates. This will cost the council an additional $1.8 million a year in interest within a few years and there are surely more increases to come as all the experts say interest rates will continue to rise fast. Remember, the council’s current 10-year strategic plan puts borrowing at $291 million by 2031 and there is NO plan yet in place to repay any of this.

5) The third concern is the rapid increase in construction costs (not yet captured in the council’s general inflation forecast). The council reports cost increases of 7-15% in its dealings with the construction sector. It has added this cost escalation to projects but has not cancelled any projects that I know of to keep its spending in line with previous rates and debt forecasts.

Whoever is elected mayor this year faces a big budget hangover – one that will mean much bigger rates increases unless the council gets serious about living within its means.

Rates will be on the minds of many of us this week as we face another another huge council bill – already among the highest in the country – that is due on Friday. (Don’t be late!)

At the same time, the council is supposed to be consulting on its budget for next year, most notably yet another rates increase,  planned increases in spending and a further enormous rise in debt.

However, it has decided to limit consultation to discussion of the tiny Pukehina community (population: 800) and the Pukehina Development Rate – a levy that accounts for less than 1 percent of council’s revenue.

So, in this election year, what else is the council up to that it would rather not talk about? Here are some thoughts:

1) The council budget has a $31.5 million hole in it for the coming year that the mayor and councillors not only know about, but have signed off on. This huge deficit (to be covered by borrowing) is nearly HALF the total rates take for the next year, despite recent huge increases in rates charged us by the council. Quite simply, the council cannot seem to live within its means despite charging us some of the highest rates in the country as it accelerates its huge spend up. Up until two years ago the council was paying off debt. Now it has completely turned that around and is borrowing massive (and still increasing) amounts to cover its budget hole.

2) Even after last year’s big rates increase, council is budgeting on another 5.8 percent jump in rates income this year. However (perhaps with an eye to voters in this year’s local council elections), the impact falls very differently across the district.
Orchardists, who face sharply higher costs this season and (for many) a disastrous harvest after the recent wind storm, will face a median increase in rates of 6.61%. Dairy farmers face a median increase of 6.79%. These two groups were also slugged hard in last year’s big rate increases.
Urban residential ratepayers (where the votes are) will face a median increase of 2.67% while the median increases for other groups are as follows: Lifestyle block 5.29%, Commercial/industrial 3.41%, Rural 4.74%

3) So how has the council come up with such modest increases for most of us in an election year? Quite simply they have slashed spending on the core businesses of council: roading, water and wastewater. Nearly $10 million has been cut from its planned spending on Three Waters (water, sewerage and stormwater) and around $4.5 million from its roading budget.
What the council has done has kept the water and wastewater rates pretty stable (up 0-1%) while increasing other rates much more (eg the general rate is rising 5-7%, on average).
Note that ALL these cuts are due to “timing changes”, which suggests they will return later, once the election is over (or perhaps the council is hoping the three waters spending will disappear into the government’s reform programme?).

Our council raises and spends $130 million a year. You would think it would consult widely on its budget and spending plans but this is apparently not seen as necessary.

The council’s annual plan committee approved this big-spending budget in just one meeting this month that lasted 23 minutes. It has also tried to curb public discussion of the budget.

To quote from the minutes of the meeting attended by the Mayor and 11 district councillors: “Council could not consider matters outside of the PDR (Pukehina Development Rate), because it had adopted the Annual Plan and communicated that the only material or significant change being considered through this process was the PDR.”

In fact, the council minutes show it will not even consider public submissions on the wider annual plan: “As the PDR was the only item ‘in scope’, any submissions received requesting material or significant changes to other parts of Council’s business or budgets could not be considered through the process.”

So I am really sorry if you have concerns about the huge council overspending or the ongoing targeting of our productive sector with higher rates, or even the reduced spending on core council three waters and transport projects in Omokoroa, Katikati, Waihi Beach and Te Puke.

The only public meeting planned on this budget is one in Pukehina to discuss the $115,000 special rate on that small community and the council says it will not consider any other matters.

June 3 -  The Western Bays District Council, after considering hundreds (if not thousands) of pages of public submissions and staff reports, has cut its proposed rates increase - by a whole 0.39 percentage points this year.

So, instead of stinging the community with an 11.9% district-wide rates increase, the council has settled on an 11.51% increase (subject to audit) by moving some rates funding to debt funding.

In other words, the council has not cut any of its big spending, big debt plans. It has fiddled around the edges and, sorry, we will all face big rates increases this year.

Councillors seemed to be happy that the council kept its increase below its self-imposed 12% increase for the year (which itself was a big change from the previous 4% limit for this year in the previous long-term plan).

There was no sign of any dissension from councillors in the decision-making meeting, including those who have campaigned on lower rates (and even a rates freeze, remember that one from the last council-wide election?)

It is not clear how this decision will affect different groups of ratepayers (remember some rural ratepayers face even bigger increases).

Technically the decision today was by a council committee, subject to confirmation by a full council meeting after the figures are audited but, considering the mayor and almost all the councillors voted today, there is no reason to see much change.

"That's a good outcome we have here," Deputy Mayor John Scrimgeour said afterwards.

The mayor's verdict: he said he was sure the main reaction from the public would be thanks for delivering on much of what was asked for.

May 31 - Today I sat through much of the Western Bay District Council's key decision-making meeting for its 10-year plan (until they kicked me out for an informal "workshop" behind closed doors, grrr). I've sat in many, many council meetings all over the country from when I first became a journalist in 1983 up until my career went in another direction in 1998 so it certainly brought back memories.

Here are some impressions from today, for what they are worth:

1) There is no doubt that the mayor and councillors have good intent. They know the detail and can get down to the nitty gritty. Yes, there is a tendency to back their corner of the district but there is also a willingness to buck parochialism to help out the whole district.

2) However our elected representatives really, really, really get bogged down in the detail. They discussed for upwards of 20 minutes decisions that might cost ratepayers $5,000 or $20,000 over ten years and spent much of this time carefully crafting the reasoning for their decisions to record in the minutes for posterity. Such small matters are important to the clubs, schools and communities that put forward requests for council help and they deserve proper consideration but you have to wonder whether you need the mayor, 10 councillors and 20+ highly paid senior council staff in a room to make such small decisions.

3) To put it all in perspective, the council plans to take in $1 billion in rates from us over the next 10 years and yet all the discussion in the meeting today would struggle to add up to even 1% of that.

4) When councillors looked at bigger issues, such as a planned $350,000 rates contribution to a new sports pavilion at Moore Park in Katikati (a plan not many in Katikati are even aware of) approval took just two minutes. Even the meeting chairman said the bigger the amount of money, the quicker the decisions seemed to come.

5) The mayor reinforced to the meeting that decisions must be made in the council chamber (i.e. in an official, public meeting) but there were a few allusions to councillors having a "rates target" for this year. I do wonder where this rates target was discussed as I don't think there is a public record of such a target (beyond the one previously published in the draft plan). It might have come from an informal workshop on the plan held behind closed doors? There is a real issue with transparency of council decisions across the whole country as these workshops have no records kept and no public or media access. A complaint from Rotorua about that council's workshops is before the ombudsman's office and Western Bay has a poor record on this too.

6) There were no journalists present for the local media and I was the only member of the public in the room. It beggers me that the local papers do not attend important meetings such as this where the council makes quite big decisions (the sports pavilion is definitely news to many in Katikati and the council also approved plans to add $130,000 to the plan to open a scenic lake by the Haiku reserve). Maybe I am just a grumpy old ex-news editor. The council does apparently stream its meetings online in some form but goodness how or where as it never promotes this service.

By the way, I am none the wiser at the end of all that whether the council plans to stick with its horrendously high rates and debt increases or whether it will pull back (or even go further). The meeting was so stuck in the nitty, gritty you could not see the big picture at all.

After kicking me out, the council kindly informed that it now plans to finish the meeting on Thursday. Work allowing, I will go along to that. I must be a sucker for punishment.

As you can see, I am the least promising candidate out there. I won’t promise you a new library in Waihi Beach (let’s fix the current one) or a $2 million roof on Katikati pool -- unless you are properly consulted about the cost on your rates and your community wants to pay for them.

Say NO to more council buildings (like the new Katikati building full of meeting rooms that hardly anyone uses).

Here’s a question to finish. Anyone have any idea just how many buildings and properties Western Bay District Council owns across the district? My pick is that it is in the hundreds.

Yet they keep wanting to buy or build more and more – and they want you to pay for them.

Fun Western Bay District Council facts of the day to show they are awash with money and don't need to raise our rates:

1) Operating Income was $108.76 mln for the 9 months to March 31 - $30 million or 39% above budget

2) Operating Expenses were $66.39 mln for the 9 months to March 31 - $2.4 mln or 3.5% below budget.

As well CAPEX spending was down on budget, helping net debt slide by a third in the nine months to $51 million.

That gives an operating surplus of just over $42 million for the nine months.

This surplus is MORE THAN half the council's total rates income for the year and shows they are simply taking in too much cash from ratepayers. The cash balance at 31 March was $58.8 million!

You can see these figures at: Agenda of Performance and Monitoring Meeting - Tuesday, 27 April 2021 (infocouncil.biz)

I have good news and bad news about the proposed big hikes in Waihi Beach rates that I wrote about last week.

The District Council has gone back and checked its homework and found an error so the proposed percentage increases have dropped markedly. That is the good news.

The bad news is that the error was in some of the old figures, not the new 2022 forecast, so the higher rates figures are still correct in terms of the large number of dollars the council wants you to pay.

The new figures are for lower value homes up 5.8% (was up 12% in the consultation document); median value homes up 6.3% (unchanged); higher value homes up 7.1% (was up 14%).

The error was that the council mistakenly used some figures from before the new rates valuations were issued last year. Not good, but I appreciate the council officials’ willingness to investigate and front up on the error.

The council is working to correct is online rates calculator and I’ll update you when that is done.

Waihi Beach’s proposed increases now broadly match the urban residential rates movements for the rest of the district but it is a bit of a depressing win. It does not mean you will pay any less, if the council’s current long-term plan is implemented.

The proposed increases for Waihi Beach are still around four times the inflation rate and the long-term plan is still hopelessly padded with overspending.

Sorry, I could not (yet) deliver a bigger victory for Waihi Beach but it does show the importance of electing district councillors who are adept at challenging the council’s numbers and pursuing issues they find.

There is much more in the long-term plan that needs fixing to really get the rates down, not just the correction of errors in the figures.

The current Katikati-Waihi Beach by-election campaign has taken a strange twist with a couple of candidates promising to “fix” SH2 if elected and push through a Katikati bypass. You have to wonder why they are not promising money trees for all ratepayers and world peace while they are at it.

Yes, SH2 safety and efficiency is a huge issue for us, including the chronic traffic problems through Katikati. To me, the answer is a road tunnel through the Kaimais that would divert trucks and much of the other traffic away.

Combine that with traffic calming measures through Katikati (roundabouts anyone?) and promotion of the current road as the “Pacific Coast” route and you will keep the leisure motorists and others in less of a hurry coming through our town, supporting our local shops but not clogging us up.

I will push for this if elected, even more than I do now, but I will not falsely promise to build this, because it is beyond both the finances and the control of the Western Bays District Council.

If you look at the approved roading projects on both sides of the Kaimais, it is pretty clear that NZTA / Waka Kotahi is quietly building towards a tunnel under the ranges, probably either near the current rail tunnel or near Thompsons Track.

The engineers are just waiting to find a government (of whatever colour) to sign off on what will be a major project of importance to the whole region, and especially the Port of Tauranga which is NZ’s biggest and most efficient port by far.

Remember, if NZTA did fund four lanes to Katikati and a four-lane bypass (which the town has been waiting for since at least the 1940s), the highway would then run into a large and difficult problem.

It would be funnelling huge amounts of traffic into the Karangahake Gorge and the only way to fix that bloody road would be to destroy the gorge.

So when an aspiring politician promises to fix SH2 as a local councillor, a position that has very limited influence over national highway funding, please ask them for specifics.

What exactly are they planning to do and how will they fund it and achieve it?

Or are they just puffing out hot air to try to get your vote?

April 2 - Many thanks to the 100 or so people who turned out to Meet the Candidates meetings in Waihi Beach and Katikati over the past week.

These are the speech notes I prepared for the meetings.  I did ad lib a bit but this covers the core of my message to voters as we try to get council revenue raising and spending under control:

You go to the supermarket to do your regular shop and you find it transformed. Beautiful new displays, stunning new products, a delicatessen from heaven. But something is missing – there are no prices on the shelves.

You need to eat, so you do your shopping and even add a few new delights to your trolley before fronting up to the checkout – where you find you have just spent hundreds of dollars more than you can afford.

This is where we are at in the Western Bay at the moment. The council has gone round and asked us all for our wish lists. Now, right at the end, the bill is coming due and it is huge.

Name me another district council in the country that wants to fund three libraries, two indoor swimming pools, put a $2 million roof on another one, spend millions each on three boatramps, and then another few millions on walkways, parks and cycleways – all in the space of a few years.

The council is playing down cost of all this. It is happily promoting its golden vision of the future so, if you want to know what it will cost you in rates, you have to dig to find its rates calculator.

One retired couple in Ongare Point has just found out that their rates will jump 13.3% next year.

Hikes of 9 or 10 percent are typical for town residents. Katikati shopkeepers face increases of anything from $400 up to $2,000 a year each. Orchardists and farmers face the biggest percentage increases.

In Waihi Beach, a friend of mine faces a 10% rise. Shopkeepers in Waihi Beach face increases of $500 or so each.

Overall, rates will rise up to 12% this year and that is just the beginning. Over the next 10 years the council plans to raise our rates by half and, at the same time, triple its debt.

The council is out of control and that is why I stand here today, a determined force to turn this madness around.

I own a wholesale business in Katikati, I have two sons and, with my partner Kay, a third child on the way.

I’ve covered local government as a journalist for decades, and I am the nerd candidate. I have read the council’s annual plan and its long-term plan front to back and I’m challenging its inconsistencies.

I’ve worked around the world for Reuters, a big news agency, as their fixit guy - turning poorly performing large and complex operations into success stories. Now we need to turn around this council.

If elected, I will communicate regularly and openly, and I will be accountable to you, the voters. I will not pop up at election time and then disappear while the council rolls on as usual.

My promise to you is that I am the least promising candidate. I don’t have a shopping list of new spending ideas. That is not credible if we are serious about getting rates under our control.

One last thought, we must end the shell game where Katikati is told, don’t worry, Te Puke will help pay for your library. Te Puke is told Omokoroa will share the cost of its pool, Omokoroa people are told its cycleways will be partly paid by Waihi Beach and Waihi Beach is told – don’t worry Katikati will pay for your new library.

When the council is splurging everywhere, the old divide and conquer tactics are no longer tenable.

(This post corrected to change size of Ongare Point increase to reflect a change in capital value of the property. Apologies for the error.)

Have you, like me, wondered how the Western Bay District Council suddenly came up with $1.275 million last year to buy a house in Katikati?

There was no consultation, no forewarning to the public of such an upcoming major purchase in either the council’s annual budget or its long-term planning document.

There was just a story in a local paper after the council purchased the property. (No price was disclosed but thankfully property records are public information.)

The council is supposed to set out its plans, get them audited, and present them to us, the residents and ratepayers, for us to say yes or no.

So how did $1.275 million slip out the door without any transparency at all?

The cost of this Beach Road house almost matched the rates increase for the whole district this year, so it is a significant purchase.

The council keeps money in a range of rates-funded pots from which it can, seemingly, dig out large sums of money without consultation.

The $1 million playground being built on a flood-plain in Omokoroa is another case in point.

A local paper tells us this is being funded by “asset replacement” and other funds, but misses the point that these funds are paid for out of our rates.

I’m not against playgrounds or sports facilities (the house is to be used by the Katikati Boating Club) but I am against the council doing major projects at our expense using opaque pots of money without asking us.

Sadly, it is set to get much worse. While the council is consulting residents about a few thousand dollars for security cameras, for example, it’s long-term plan quietly sets aside an extra $31 million out of rates over the next 10 years to bank for future use.

Currently this asset replacement fund has around $5 million in it, so the council plan is to increase the fund seven-fold – effectively taxing current ratepayers almost half a year extra in rates to pay for future projects.

FYI that our council already had $35 million in cash on hand (half a year of rates) at the end of its last financial year, its annual report shows, and its operating surpluses over the past five years totalled $196 million.

Note too that the council is budgeting for another big operating surplus next year of $16.9 million – more than enough to remove the need for any rates increase this year. Our council has a pile of our cash already!