The council forecast its capital spending in the 2024-25 financial year would exceed $206m — excluding council companies — but it ended up about $148m, or 71.5% of the budget.
At Monday’s audit and risk committee meeting, chairman Warren Allen said the reductions in expenditure and delay in capital projects would result in a "lower level of debt drawn down".
Cr Christine Garey said it was tempting to consider the spending reduction a saving, but the deferred work still needed to be done.
"Much as it’s great to have reduced debt, all of those projects were carefully considered, well planned and it’s regrettable that ... for perfectly legitimate reasons, we were not able to reach our 100%."
Council chief executive Sandy Graham said it was not an intentional decision made to manage debt.
"We were slower getting to market for a range of reasons; we had some timing delays."
Ms Graham previously had said the council had slowed some procurement — she had referred to "increased scrutiny and oversight" from councillors.
The council was unlikely to deliver the $231m capital work programme budgeted for year one (2025-26) of its nine-year plan — an increase of $83m compared to capital spending in 2024-25.
"It will take a little bit of time for both us and all the market to gear up to that level of delivery," Ms Graham said.
She was confident the programme of work in the nine-year plan out to 2034 could be delivered within that period, she said.
Yesterday, Ms Graham told the Otago Daily Times staff had been reporting on the projected underspend since late last year — the situation was "well canvassed" and not a surprise.
Staff had needed to adapt processes and spend time accommodating an increase in oversight and project forecasting requests from councillors, which had taken time, she said.
"These changes are now largely in place as the nine-year plan capital programme rolls out."
Delays for some waste projects associated with the Green Island Resource Recovery Park were also impacting timing for planned work, which might continue through the 2025-26 financial year.
Less spending on capital work had produced a reduction in new debt and operational expenditure, she said.
Updated financial forecasts would be presented to the council as soon as they were available.
The committee accepted the report, which was also considered at last week’s council meeting.
