Under-funded pipes? Wellington Water got more cash than requested

Saturday, 27 January 2024

Wellington Water, the utility facing a crisis that has the mayor now committing to water meters after earlier concerns, has been funded for millions of dollars more than it asked for – even after top-ups.

The newly released figures fly in the face of the public discourse, that the Wellington City Council has been underfunding Wellington Water. The numbers have been confirmed as being roughly in-line with the council’s own numbers by chief infrastructure officer Siobhan Proctor.

They show total funding from the city council to Wellington Water was right in the upper-range of money the water utility requested and tens of millions of dollars more than the lower range.

As grass around Wellington browns off and the region’s residents are asked to save water in a crisis around the region, largely caused by excessive leaks, Wellington mayor Tory Whanau has moved from being circumspect about water meters, used to charge residents for actual water used, to advocating for them.

“Water meters must also be part of the solution and I would like to see them rolled out in the coming years,” she said in an opinion piece in today’s The Post.

“Water meters will help us take a smarter approach to identifying leaks and reduce waste.”

Proctor said Wellington Water had asked for another $130m in the next long-term plan for water meters for Wellington.

Council-controlled organisations, of which Wellington Water was one, came to the council as it started each 10-year, long-term plan, with what money they needed for the coming three years, Proctor said.

But, within five months of the plan 2021-2024 budget being finalised, Wellington Water had come back with a request for more.

It was roughly estimated that every $4m of extra council spending resulted in a 1% rates increase, she said.

The council was in 2024 looking into its next long-term plan and the council had been given a figure, which she could not recall.

Wellington Water chief executive Tonia Haskell previously said the region needed to spend $1 billion a year, pus inflation, for 30 years to fix the pipes and new figures going to councils for current budgets were big.

It was for the council to release the actual figures. She said Wellington City would have to produce the numbers next week for Local Government Minister Simeon Brown, who had requested urgent information on how Wellington and Upper Hutt councils were dealing with the water crisis.

Wellington Water figures show it asked for between $107m and $135m in operational expenditure for the three years from mid-2021 to mid-2024 and received – even after going back to the council for top-ups – $134.4m. The one proviso was that $12.8m came from the Crown.

Operational expenditure is used for maintaining water networks and waste water plants, finding and fixing leaks, and responding to reactive incidents.

Wellington Water figures show it asked for $157m to $183m for the capital development funding in the period, and received $187.6m. This was to cover costs such as replacing and upgrading ageing water infrastructure and building new infrastructure.

It means Wellington Water asked for between $264m and $318m over three years and got $323m, of which about $309.2m came from the city council.

Councillor Ben McNulty questioned why the cost of water meters for Wellington had jumped from $50m to $130m in three years.