Andrew von Dadelszen Former Regional Councillor

In her editorial last week Paula Thompson indicated our regional council has flagged a desire to move the balance of its funding base from the current 24 per cent of its operating expenditure, being funded from investment income (with approximately 13 per cent coming from general rates, and a further 11 per cent coming from targeted rates), to a much higher proportion of rating revenue.
In principal, this is sensible because if there is a ‘hiccup' from its investment income, such as an unexpected drop in the Port of Tauranga dividend, (the Port of Tauranga dividend accounting for more than $20m of investment funding into council's coffers), this would suddenly require a massive increase in rates to offset such a drop.
Bay of Plenty ratepayers have been blessed by the strong performance of our port shares for the last 20 years and there is always a risk that this might not continue. We must not 'manage this risk”, however, by unnecessarily burdening ratepayers with high rating increases (as a substitute for the current investment income) because this will just build an unacceptably high nest-egg for the regional council, funded by ratepayers.
We need to celebrate the successful management of the port, continue to monitor that investment and continue to carry enough reserves to mitigate a risk of a ‘one off' event, without unduly increasing rates revenue.

In 2008, regional council set up an infrastructure funding mechanism using the $200m Quayside Perpetual Preference shares – and to their credit have managed these funds very well; to date having spent at least $45m, yet growing the residual fund to over $220m. In these current tight economic times it is appropriate for the council to now make some substantive economic development investments to stimulate our local economy.
I have previously advocated that a $30m investment to seed fund a new bricks and mortar tertiary institution in Tauranga would be huge for the Bay and it really needs a ‘champion' at council to make this happen. It is time to stop talking and get some action happening.

If you have a view on these or any other local government issues, I invite you to email andrew@vond.co.nz