Ashburton District Councillors are proposing to use $2 million from a rainy day reserves fund to boost roading work in the 2022-23 budget.

Councillors have so far spent three days with senior Council staff giving them direction on spending priorities for the next financial year and a draft budget is being prepared.

Council is also having to factor in the rising cost of goods and services because of inflation and new Government drinking water compliance.

Mayor Neil Brown said it would be a no-frills budget on basic services, but Council wanted to inject extra money into its roads.

“Ninety per cent of our roads are in good order, but there are potholes and other issues that need sorting to make them safer. We know the standard of some of our roads is a concern of ratepayers.

“We are doing our best to keep the total rates requirement percentage increase in single digits and budgeting for only what we need to do.

“Some work is on the nice-to-do list and some on the do-later list.”

Mayor Brown said drinking water compliance, to meet new Government regulation, would be responsible for a good chunk of the rate increase.

“We need equipment to continuously test and report the quality of our drinking water to meet new quality assurance rules and that is on top of the money we tagged in the Long Term Plan for big upgrades to some water treatment plants, like Methven’s.”

Proposed spending in the water area includes:

$430,000 on installing new tools that will automatically sample drinking water on the Ashburton, Methven, Rakaia, Hinds and Mt Somers supplies and send the results online to Council.

$5.3m over two years for new filtration and UV treatment equipment at water treatment plants in Ashburton, Tinwald, Rakaia and Hinds.

$1.12m on water main renewals on Chalmers Avenue, Elizabeth and Grigg Street, River Terrace and Main Street, Methven.

Mayor Brown said it was a challenging budget and would contain only projects that Council knew could be achieved in the financial year.

“We also know that some urban people will be affected by the recent higher revaluation of their properties, as rates are collected in proportion to the value of their buildings and land.”

Councillors also indicated they wanted to drop library fines for overdue books, as other councils have done. Borrowers will instead be invoiced for books overdue by four weeks or more.