At a recent Whakatāne District Council meeting, Deputy Mayor Lesley Immink sought reassurances that cost escalations for central government-funded projects would not fall on ratepayers.

The council's Living Together Committee was updated on the progress of projects funded by the Three Waters Better Off Funding package.

In September, the council applied for its share of $5.66 million from the $500 million fund offered by the Department of Internal Affairs, to compensate councils for the transfer of water services to new water entities.

The Whakatāne council has seven projects being progressed by the funding. These include:

$1 million toward the development of a Collective Iwi Policy Hub, to assist iwi groups to give input on council planning;

$1.36 million to build civil defence capability, including seismic strengthening of rural halls at Waimana and Te Teko;

$500,000 for community outreach initiative Hono Hapori, which will provide two vehicles to take council services such as library, arts, heritage, community education, rates and animal control into rural and remote communities;

-$1 million for a CCTV upgrade for the district;

-$200,00 toward the development of an Eastern Bay Spatial Plan;

-$900,000 to develop an Edgecumbe to Thornton walking and biking trail

-$700,000 to support town regeneration projects for Murupara and Minginui, including housing, commercial and wellbeing projects.

The council's strategy and transformation general manager Steve Perdia said all projects were 'off and running”, with no major areas of concern.

Among risks identified for the projects were that costs might escalate beyond the amount the council has received funding for. One of the stipulations in receiving the funding was that projects were completed before July 2027 and Mr Perdia said some of the projects would span 'a number of years”.

Mrs Immink asked what happened to the funding if projects were not finished by the date stipulated.

Mr Perdia said it was not clear at this stage.

'I would say that if we hadn't completed the projects the funding will stop and the project would stop at whatever point it's at.”

However, he said he was confident they would be completed on time.

Mrs Immink also expressed concern about the possibility of cost escalations for the projects falling onto ratepayers as she considered a lot of these projects to be 'nice-to-haves". She said she had previously questioned why the council was putting these projects ahead of long-term plan items.

'We've already set our rates. With our long-term plan coming up we don't want these projects … to be costing us any more than our bottom line if we don't have it.”

Mr Perdia said if extra funding outside of the Better Off Funding Package was needed, staff would need to bring that back to council to approve.

'At that point councillors could decline it.”

Waimana War Memorial Hall is one of two rural halls in the Whakatāne district to receive seismic strengthening thanks to $1.36 million Better Off Funding to build civil defence capability.

He said the council was being prudent by trying to get the projects completed well ahead of the 2027 deadline.

'It means that we've got the money for the projects without any risk of funding changes that might occur, particularly if there's a change of Government.

He said the council was keeping a very close eye on any cost escalations.

'We're looking at how we can use the existing Better Off Funding budget to deal with any cost escalations.”

He said the risk of cost escalation for these projects was not unique to the Whakatāne council.

"Better Off Funding projects across the country are subject to high inflation. I'm very confident that we will get all of our projects completed and we'll make the most out of that funding. It's not often that a council can do something 100 percent funded by central government.”

-Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.