‘No sacred cows’: Wellington council search for savings amid pipe crisis

Thursday, 25 January 2024

Wellington mayor Tory Whanau is promising more funding to fix Wellington’s ailing pipes, leaving councillors proposing another round of cuts ranging from the Town Hall to cycleways to staffing.

“Our first step … is to work through possible savings and deferrals in the budget,” Whanau said when asked where she would find the money.

She promised the Wellington City Council “will be investing even more” money on pipes over the next 10 years, but did not say how much, and said officers were looking at options for funding. Her office would not be drawn on the chance of rates rises.

But any savings (cutting projects) or deferring (putting them off) will have to be found in the wake of already decided cuts made as the council looked to save money late last year.

This included voting to cut $170 million from the budget for Civic Square and the City to Sea Bridge and investigating whether the bridge, basement and former Capital E building can be demolished. But, even then, some in council warned Wellington to brace for hefty rates rises this year.

It came around the same period the council found itself having to agree to stump up a $147m cost blowout for fixing up the Town Hall, and revelations that council boss Barbara McKerrow had received two hefty pay increases to take her salary beyond $500,000.

Meanwhile, Wellington’s long running pipe saga, following decades of under-investment, has gone from bad to dire with news the city’s taps could run dry this summer while Wellington City loses 60 million litres a day of drinking water to leaks.

Deputy mayor Laurie Foon said the council needed to look “across all council operations and projects” as well as working with councils around the regions on long-term solutions.

“The reality is Wellington property owners have already had the savings with years of low rates and not re-investing in this infrastructure,” Foon said.

The past three years have seen average rates increases of 12.8%, 8.8%, then 12.3%.

Councillor Diane Calvert said the council needed to cut back on “big gold-plated spends” including revamping the $139m Golden Mile, the $94 million Hutt Rd and Thorndon Quay changes, a $226m cycle network, the up to $329m Town Hall strengthening, and the Central Library rework. All projects are under way to varying degrees.

Iona Pannett said the council needed to look at a city deal from central government to deal with the climate crisis and infrastructure. “We probably need $6 or $7 billion,” she said.

Ben McNulty said there could be “no sacred cows” as the council looked for pipe cash.

“Anything existing on the books that has budget blow outs need reviewing,” he said.

Nicola Young said water had to be the city’s only priority, with everything else up for review, including the council’s own structure and staffing levels.

Ray Chung called for deferral of the Golden Mile, bike lanes, a Kilbirnie skate park, new rubbish bins, as well as finding $300m in savings from the council’s operating expenditure.

Rebecca Matthews said she would look for “savings options that have minimal impact on Wellingtonians”.

Nureddin Abdurahman said the council needed to fund Wellington Water to fix leaks “as fast as possible” and go over its books with a fine-tooth comb to find savings. Borrowing money should be on the table, he said.

“It makes me angry that water is leaking down our streets in the middle of a supply crisis. The council needs to do the basics better,” Abdurahman said.

Wellington Water is a council-controlled organisation owned by Wellington city and regional councils, as well as two Hutt Valley councils, South Wairarapa District Council, and Porirua City Council.

The Wellington City Council is Wellington Water’s biggest funder and this year gave it $53 million in operational funding plus $60m in capital funding.