Rubbish data leaves $3m hole in Waikato District Council’s refuse budget

Tuesday, 10 March 2026

Rubbish stickers have left Waikato District Council in a financial hole.

It’s still not known how it happened but an accounting cock-up over rubbish stickers has left a $3 million hole in Waikato District Council’s annual budget.

Last month, the council was told it faced a deficit of $3.9m, mainly due to a correction to its user-pay refuse sticker revenue budget - basically, it wrongly estimated how much money it would take in from sales of council rubbish stickers.

“The variance arose from an over-estimation of the volume of stickers expected to be sold,’’ a staff report said.

“Actual user-pay sticker volume sales have remained broadly consistent with prior years. The correction of this budgeting error resulted in a $2.9m reduction in revenue, which was the main contributor to the reported deficit.’’

Someone, somehow is costing ratepayers after an accounting blunder.

There were also projected deficits due to a $114,000 drop in fees resulting from P2B2 improvements (paper to building consent improvements) and a $50,000 drop in cemetery costs.

On Monday, a council workshop talking about the council’s Annual Plan, was told staff had managed to reduce that deficit down to $1.7m through “aggressive’’ efficiencies.

However, there was still more work needed to reduce that deficit further to ensure general rates were kept to the “below 3%’’ figure set by Mayor Aksel Bech.

Speaking to the Waikato Times, Mayor Bech said the issue was caused by an accounting error, one made over the length of the council’s previous Long Term Plan.

In simple terms, the council wrongly estimated how much money it would take in from sales of rubbish stickers.

“So, it's a 10 year error. Now at the back end of the 10 years there's sort of other ways we can deal with it I guess, you know, inflation will also help in that sense but in these first few years it's a real impact on basically an overstated assumption of income.

“So in coming out with the rate increase effective first July, all of a sudden we're having to fill in a hole that is $2.9 million debt, which is not great news when you're trying to find savings.’’

“We've got a new CFO, a new CEO and a new triennium. So, it's sort of hard to forensically go back and say just how did this happen.

“I don't expect that it was something that elected members would necessarily get to the detail of.

“It’s buried in the much bigger spreadsheet but I would have expected our accounting systems to have picked up on it and it wasn't. So that's something, unfortunately, I get to live with.’’

The rubbish stickers retail for $3.

Efforts to reduce the deficit further under consideration include, a further freeze on filling staff vacancies and deferring or cancelling planned capital projects, or a possible combination of the two.

Monday’s workshop was told that staff have a review underway to ensure the situation cannot be repeated.

Changes are also being made to ensure ‘other expenses’ are recorded on a separate spreadsheet and are easier to identify.