Otago Regional Councillor Michael Laws has criticised spending in the region and proposed major changes to staffing and expenditure.
Mr Laws has teamed up with other councillors and potential candidates in the region including Dunstan-based Gary Kelliher and Wānaka-based candidate Nicky Rhodes to create like-minded policies under the group Vision Otago.
One of the main issues they have outlined is the surplus staff across the region, suggesting they are not needed, and are contributing to years of significant increases in rates.
The Queenstown Lakes District Council in June approved rate increases for the region which exceeded the expected increases in the 2024-34 long-term plan.
The median residential rates increase for median value residential homes is 18.7% for Wānaka, 17.6% for Luggate, 15.3% for Hāwea and 13.2% for Queenstown.
Mr Laws made a point to say that unlike the Queenstown Lakes District Council, the ORC is not as responsible for infrastructure in the region, but according to him, it has been spending too much ratepayer money on new staff.
"The Otago Regional Council has very little infrastructure at all," he said.
"... so most of the rate increase is connected to more than doubling the staff over the last six years ... It’s completely unsustainable."
He used communication staff as an example, saying the council did not need 13 people employed in that department.
An ORC spokesperson said the budget for FTE staff over the 2023-24 financial year had been about 352 and increased to 359 in the year. There is an increase of two FTE staff budgeted by the end of the year.
The concern was that despite the increase in staff and rates, there had been little done to improve Otago’s smaller regions.
"The question I would have of everybody is, your rates have more than doubled over the last four or five years, have you seen any improvement in council services? Have you seen any less rabbits, any less pests? Have you seen any cleaner water?" Mr Laws said.
The ORC’s most recent annual plan estimated the total cost of council work for the year would be $140.63million, 33% going towards transport, 24% going towards environmental work and 23% towards regional leadership.
The ORC’s activities in Wānaka include land, air and water monitoring activities across Lake Wānaka, Lake Hawea and the surrounding rivers and waterways.
As part of their shared policies, Vision Otago’s dedication to reducing rates would mean looking at ways to ensure staffing numbers were fit for purpose, which could be done through attrition or voluntary redundancy.
The policy also included a promise to end automatic 5%-per-year staff salary increases and make better use of the ORC-owned Port of Otago balance sheet to support major environmental initiatives.
ORC chief executive Richard Saunders said this year’s rate increase was smaller than originally planned. The forcast average ORC rate increase for this financial year had been 13.8% but the increase in the 2025-26 annual plan had been lower at 5.5%.
"Contributing to the less-than-forecast rates increase were cuts to some planned public transport upgrades, reprioritisation of environmental implementation funding, reduced inflation costs," Mr Saunders said.
