Ashburton looks set to trip at the first hurdle of delivering its government-approved water services plan.

At an annual plan workshop on Wednesday, chief executive Hamish Riach said there are some projects the new inhouse business unit will not be able to deliver as laid out in the plan for 2026/27.

“They are not scoped, they are not designed, we know they will not be completed,” Riach said.

“Including them [in the annual plan] will simply be a reason for undershooting the capital programme.”

Riach said the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) requires quarterly reviews on the progress and “we will need to explain to them why it isn’t exactly the same as the plan”.

The workshop was less numbers, more facts, covering the process and an overview of details rather than delving into the budgets.

Work on crunching numbers will begin in February, but councillors were made well aware that water services work will put pressure on rates to rise.

Costly roads

The other annual plan discussion point was unsubsidised road funding.

Unsubsidised road funding is money that was included in the long-term plan but then wasn’t matched by NZTA funding.

“The council is spending its own money on its own work. You get extra roading done but you are paying 100% of the cost,” Riach said.

In 2024/25 the unsubsidised $2.45m went almost entirely on reseals, and this year the $2.5m was spread around projects, including around $1m on reseals.

The $2.5m of unsubsidised road funding is around 4.5% of the rates, and there is also $500,000 of unsubsidised funding for unsealed roads, a further 1%.

Annual report adopted

After the looking ahead to next year’s plan in the morning, at the meeting in the afternoon the council adopted the 2025/26 annual report without discussion.

The council reported a healthy $116.7m comprehensive revenue and expenses, and an operating surplus is $8.3m, driven largely by $108.4m in asset revaluations, not day-to-day operations.

Total revenue was $4.4m above budget, including a $5.9m jump in rates revenue from 2024 and $1.8m higher-than-expected development contributions, but subsidies and grants were $2.5m below budget.

The council overspent its operating budget, the cost of delivering and running services, by $8.2m.

Council budgeted $43.8 for capital works but spent only $32.4 – an underspend of $11.4m.

The council’s debt at the end of 2024/25 was $144m, an increase of $13m but lower than budgeted $169m.

Councillor expenses on show

Ashburton District councillor expense claims will now be reported quarterly.

In discussing the annual report, Councillor Carolyn Cameron expressed a desire to for regular reporting of expense claims.

She said it’s a transparency issue “and the community has a right to no”.

“Having it retrospectively reported in an annual report is not transparent, in my view, enough.

“People have to seek it out and by then it’s done”.

She put forward the motion for the councillor expense claims to be reported quarterly.

Cr Tony Todd was all for being “as open and transparent as possible”.

“Rather than having it reported yearly, between page 1 and 250 [in the annual report].

The motion passed unanimously.

By Jonathan Leask