Councillors have spent two and a half days giving direction to staff on the draft Annual Plan for 2025-26, which will determine this year’s rates.

The Annual Plan will include any changes from the Long Term Plan 2024-34, which sets out the services and capital projects Council will deliver over the next decade.

Mayor Neil Brown said councillors had gone through nearly 200 pages of budget documents and talked a lot about depreciation and the cost of insurance.

“There are not too many differences from when we consulted the community during the Long Term Plan and there are unders and overs, which is usual.

"We’ve asked staff to look at all ways we can reduce the rates increase. That may mean being able to use money that has built up in Reserve Contributions and Property Contributions accounts over the years, but there are rules about how we are able to use it.

“We started these workshops with an average rate increase of 9.8 per cent and we’ll use as many levers as possible to keep rates in line with the levels of service the community expects.”

Council is forecasting to collect about $57.6 million in rates, with capital expenditure including about $16m on drinking water, wastewater and stormwater projects and about $19m on roading and footpaths.

“Most of that capital expenditure is in core work, but we are also dealing with the high cost of things like insurance and electricity,” Mayor Brown said.

“So we’re exploring if we can sell property or sweat our assets longer, and we'll come back for another workshop on 26 February with an amended budget.”