Horizons to adopt its 2023-24 Annual Plan

Horizons Regional Councillors are planning on adopting their 2023-24 Annual Plan later this month.
 

The Annual Plan sets out some small changes made to Council’s key activities, priority work programmes for the year, and the required budget to achieve Council’s community outcomes. The process is Council’s opportunity to check in on what was indicated for each of the individual years within the 2021-31 Long-term Plan (LTP) and to make sure that the most up-to-date information and budgets are applied.
 
Horizons chair Rachel Keedwell says Council chose not to consult on the 2023-24 Annual Plan as there are no significant changes from the activities outlined in Year 3 of the LTP.
 
“However, there are some slight budget adjustments for the financial year ahead,” she says.
 
“These adjustments include an additional $300,000 towards insurance costs, particularly for our flood protection assets in response to recent weather events, a $280,000 increase to fuel costs as a result of rising inflation, and an increase of $200,000 to the cost of the planned Palmerston North public transport network improvements as Council decided to introduce a full electric vehicle fleet for the service.
 
“To make these small adjustments we have refined some of our other work programmes, particularly in our river management capital work programmes. All other Council activities remain as planned for the next 12 months, with a continued focus on our priority areas of freshwater, biodiversity, climate change, and making our data and information accessible to our communities.
 
“Much of this work includes progressing the implementation of the National Policy Statement and National Environmental Standards for Freshwater; dedicated work programmes around our biodiversity icon projects, river management works, and public transport improvements.
 
“We have also planned for a significant reduction in external funding for the Land Management sustainable land use initiate (SLUI) as the current contract expires. In order to maintain service levels for this programme a $400,000 rates increase was planned for in the LTP.”
 
Cr Keedwell says based on the work programmes planned for the year, an additional $3.7 million in rates revenue is needed to continue to do core business.
 
“This equates to a 6.6% total rate increase across the region, which is in line with what was planned in the LTP. It’s important to keep in mind that this rate impact will differ from district to district due to factors such as changes to property values and specific rating inputs such as river schemes, biodiversity, and passenger transport.
 
“Council are aware that any rate increase is not ideal and have worked hard to ensure any total rates increase did not exceed what was already forecasted.”
 
The final Annual Plan, with the details of Council’s key work programmes for the year, will be made publicly available on Horizons’ website www.horizons.govt.nz and at Council’s service centres within the next few weeks. In the meantime, anyone wanting to check what their next rates invoice will look like can use the rates search tool available here.