Power bill fund intact

A fund to help Dunedin people pay their electricity bills has escaped the knife.

City councillors yesterday voted to include the $200,000 Consumer Electricity Fund in the pre-draft annual plan after it was removed by cost-cutting council staff.

They also set up a working party to investigate ways of funding it, and another to see how the council could help improve housing energy efficiency to help lessen poverty.

Beating Cr Neil Collins to the punch, Cr Teresa Stevenson said she agreed with his proposal this week to get the money from the council's Waipori fund.

The more-than $70 million fund was established after the forced sale of the Waipori hydro electricity scheme, and it made sense that its use be investigated, she said.

Cr Kate Wilson wondered whether the council could direct its lines company, Aurora Energy, to contribute to the fund and suggested there might be tax incentives.

Cr Syd Brown suggested the company might have to donate it to social services to allocate, as the council could not require its companies to do that.

Finance and corporate support general manager Athol Stephens said there could be tax benefits but advised against pushing a council company for "yet more cash".

The fund got its money from the council, and the council got a $4 million dividend from the Waipori scheme. Tagging the money as coming from the dividend would still affect rates.

Cr Neil Collins said it would still only affect 0.2% of rates and sought to have the money safeguarded for the rest of the council term.

• Council staff will go back to the books to see if the recent sale of flats on Helensburgh Rd would affect depreciation costs and a proposal to lift community housing rents by $10.

Told some of the rise was depreciation and maintenance costs, councillors asked staff to see how the recent sale would affect the council's overall costs and what it needed to get back in rent.

- stu.oldham@odt.co.nz