Wellington Water blunder leads to last-minute budget request for millions

Thursday, 23 May 2024

Workers at Wellington Water's pump stations deal with fatbergs and rag monsters - the nasty consequences of people flushing oil and wet wipes down their drains. (Video first published June 9, 2022)

A spreadsheet blunder has resulted in Wellington Water asking for less money than it needs from every council in the region – to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

The last-minute request for increased funding was made in a week when cash-strapped councils are making major decisions on long-term plans, with one mayor labelling the water agency “incompetent”.

The mistake – described as a miscalculation where programme management costs had not been budgeted for – was revealed in Thursday’s Greater Wellington Regional Council meeting.

The Post understands this now increases Wellington City Council’s budget by $9m, while Lower Hutt’s budget blowout was said to be significantly higher. Mayors and council staff were not able to confirm the numbers on the record ahead of Friday’s Wellington Water Committee meeting.

Upper Hutt mayor Wayne Guppy, a long-time critic of Wellington Water, said it was “beyond belief” and “just incompetent”. The discovery of the error could not come at a worse time, when councils were almost finished budgeting one of the toughest long-term plans in local government history.

“What will happen is councils will get the blame, they’ll say, ‘You should have given us more money’,” Guppy said.

Wellington Water committee chairperson and Hutt City mayor Campbell Barry said he became aware of the issue in the past 48 to 72 hours and staff were working through what it would mean for the Hutt.

“I’ve been really clear to Wellington Water they need to front up to this issue at the water committee [on Friday] and give a full explanation, and the steps they are taking.

“That will be the time where we’ll be able to share more.”

Wellington mayor Tory Whanau said she was disappointed, especially so late in the budgeting process.

Porirua mayor Anita Baker was “very displeased”.

“We’re very concerned about late advice impacting our long-term plan. We will be expressing our dissatisfaction to Wellington Water directly and at the committee meeting,” she said.

In the meeting, regional councillor Ros Connelly described the situation as “really really really unfortunate”.

“The timing couldn’t be worse … I don't know in reality whether many of the councils had much more money to give, even if they'd known that going forward that Wellington Water wanted 7% more.”

Wellington Water has asked for a last-minute budget increase from its shareholding councils. (File photo)

Regional council staff said they understood the city councils were unlikely to increase their budgets in response to the request.

A regional council staff member, briefing councillors on the problem, said it was “a human error that’s come through a spreadsheet … it shouldn't have got this far obviously but it has”.

Wellington Water could not comment because the matter would be discussed at the regional water committee, a spokesperson said.

The relationship between Wellington Water and two of its shareholding councils – Upper Hutt and Wellington – has been on rocky ground over concerns about transparency.

A report commissioned by Wellington City into the water entity was critical of the water entity’s processes, but was dismissed as “riddled with errors” by water boss Tonia Haskell.

Clarification: A previous version of the story said the dollar value error in Wellington was $80m. It’s now unclear whether that figure was correct, as councils spoken to by The Post were not confident how much the budget error was worth. (Updated at 1.45pm, May 23 2024)