District councillors voted on Wednesday to go out for public consultation on a preferred option of 5.4%.
To get a 5.4% or 4.9% rise, the council will need to reduce staff recruitment and possibly disestablish some roles within the council, which Mayor Lydia Gliddon hinted at in Selwyn Times last month.
"Effectively, what we will have is a hiring freeze, and there will also be a reduction in consultancy spend as well.”
However, all options excluded water charges which were now handled by a separate company - Selwyn Water Ltd.
The council has found $10.1m in savings by delaying some projects, shifting to a more user pays model, and reducing grants and events funding.
In that time, the council increased staff numbers from 586 to 665, and the number of full-time employees from 309 to 379.
Gliddon could not say how many staff would be affected, as it would depend on the outcome of public consultation.
"The consultation, hearings and deliberations are crucial to informing what we do next.”
Interim council chief executive Steve Gibling said any staffing changes will be implemented after the Annual Plan is signed off in June.
"If there is a service or a thing that we do that is decided to be slowed down or stopped, then we’ll start talking with those affected staff members, and we run through the normal process of changing the way we deliver our services to the community,” he said.
"It’s a difficult conversation, but it is one we have to be prepared for. A lot of other organisations around the country have been doing the very same thing."
On Wednesday, councillors also voted not to get more feedback on Leeston’s new library and community centre, called Whata Rau, and instead move straight to detailed design on the building.
The vote followed the community reference group, formed to give feedback on the project, asking councillors at today’s meeting not to pause the project for further review, as originally proposed in the draft Annual Plan.
While the project is budgeted to cost $16m, the reference group believed it could get it to under $10m.
Council staff said at the meeting as the project goes through a detailed design, the cost of construction and ongoing operating costs would become clearer.
Despite the overall savings identified, there would be no changes to the level of service ratepayers receive if there was a 6.5% or 5.4% rates increase.
But to reach a 4.9% increase, cuts would need to find $10.5 million in savings. The draft consultation document said this may impact the council’s ability to meet its legal obligations and deliver services for everything from capital projects to library services and rubbish collection.
A 4.9% increase has yet to be fully modelled by the council due to a lack of time, but Gliddon is confident the council can deliver it if the community wants it.
“It is possible, because we wouldn’t have put it in there if it wasn’t possible without breaking what we legally have to deliver,” she said.
One of the key deferrals is a proposal to delay Leeston’s new library and community centre, Whata Rau, by about a year while the council reviews the project and a possible third redesign. The council is also looking at reducing its economic development strategy by 75%, a potential saving of $650,000.
The council is predicting $263.5m in revenue over the next financial year from rates, fees and charges, and is expecting to spend $196.5m on operating expenses and $86m on capital infrastructure.
