Tauranga Mayor Stuart Crosby wants central Government to provide a financial life-line to cover the budget short-fall highlighted in the Draft Ten Year Plan audit.

The audit, undertaken by Audit New Zealand, found there is not enough money for six years' worth of projects outlined in the Draft Ten Year Plan.
Auditor General John Scott says Tauranga City Council faces two choices – increasing income or reducing expenditure.
In a speech to city councillors and members of the public, John said TCC had not demonstrated good practice in the Draft Ten Year Plan.
'The bottom line is that the SOP (Draft Ten Year Plan) you have presented to Audit New Zealand for audit is in our judgement too risky or not prudent enough,” says John.
Stuart says the council knew it would get censured over the draft so John's comments came as no surprise.
'It was a situation we knew would happen but at the end of the day we need to take ownership of the issue and take the debate to the community,” says Stuart.
He wants to talk to Government about financial assistance rates or getting a guarantee for Tauranga City Council's loans in order to reduce interest rates.
'I also believe sub-regionally, there is better utilisation of money through Environment Bay of Plenty who was given a cash-cow through ownership of the Port of Tauranga to develop the region and they are not utilising that asset at all.”
Stuart says it was pointed out in the audit that TCC had relied too heavily on loans to fund a variety of long-term projects, such as the southern pipe-line and the stormwater recovery programme, and not on main streams of revenue such as rates, development contributions and user-fee charges.
'The key issue is how to fairly fund major infrastructure into the future to cater for growth.
'We are in this position because we have done a lot of long-term planning. We could quite easily put smaller infrastructure forward but that would only create bigger problems later on.”
John said it was not all bad news for TCC, adding the draft is fine for the next two years and that the council has no problems with financial sustainability in the short-term.
He also says council is doing well on decision-making, consultation, asset management, consistency and compliance.
'This process exposes people to the right debate and enables the community and council to identify problems in advance. The scene has been set by the council for great participation and debate for the people of this wonderful city,” says John.