Up to $18.7m a year. Hiding in plain sight.
Three years of council accounts, read the way a turnaround consultant reads them. Water, roads, waste, regulation and civil defence stay protected. Everything else is on the table... and you hold the dials. At full stretch the moves add up to about $18.7m a year, roughly 12 points of rates or $569 per rates bill. About $12m is likely to land in year one.
Rates change, on this year's terms
A 6.3% cut instead of council's 5.9% rise.
Every $1.53m saved is 1 point off rates. Real changes would land in the 2027-2037 Long Term Plan.
What we found
The big numbers are protected. The savings sit in the middle.
Roads, water and wastewater swallow most of the money and they're not for cutting. But 43% of rates goes to services that other people could run, or that could run leaner. That's where we looked.
- 1Rates up $42m in two years.
The cyclone recovery rate explains $16m. The other $26m is just the cost of running the place going up.
- 2The back office beats its own budget. Every year.
Governance and support spent $21.0m against a $17.6m plan in 2025/26. Over plan in all three years.
- 3The $140k+ club grew 55%.
49 people in 2023/24, 76 in 2025/26. Total headcount barely moved.
- 4Upgrades run over. Renewals run under.
Community facility upgrades came in 42% over plan. Pipe and road renewals came in 21% under. That's deferring the wrong things.
- 5A big slice is hand-overs, not cuts.
Splash Planet, Toitoi, events, senior housing. Other operators can run these. Council is already asking residents about Splash Planet and the Art Gallery.
- 6Some "savings" aren't.
Selling the airport stake barely moves rates. CBD levies are business-paid. We show these separately so nobody double counts.
The evidence
Six exhibits. Every number traced to a page.
Hover any bar for detail. Open "Data" under each exhibit for the table.
Rates rose $42m in two years. Cyclone recovery is $16m of it.
Rates revenue, $m, years to 30 June
Source: Annual Report 2023/24 p93; 2024/25 p88; 2025/26 p94 (whole-of-council funding impact statements); cyclone rate 2025/26 p96.
Data
$65m of rates, 43%, goes to services you can dial.
Rates funded by activity, 2025/26, $m
Source: Annual Report 2025/26 p35. "Safe, healthy & liveable communities" includes waste and civil defence, which we protect line by line.
Data
Council overspends on upgrades and the back office while renewals slip.
2025/26 actual vs council's own plan, % difference
Source: Annual Report 2025/26 p64, p69, p94. Some renewals slipped for cyclone reasons (weather, site complexity).
Data
The Art Gallery costs ratepayers about $85 a visit.
Rates subsidy per visit, 2025/26, $
Source: costs from council's LTP pre-engagement (2 Nov 2026) and Annual Report 2025/26 p35; visits AR 2025/26 p25, p40. Toitoi, pools and i-SITE costs are estimates (see Method).
Data
The salary layer above $140k grew 55% while headcount stood still.
Staff paid $140k+, and back-office spend vs plan ($m)
Source: remuneration bands AR 2023/24 p123, AR 2025/26 p124; governance and support funding impact statements AR 2023/24 p70, 2024/25 p69, 2025/26 p69.
Data
Your mix: savings by type of move.
Annual rates effect, $m. Moves with the dials below.
Deferrals and sales count only the interest saved at 3.75%, less lost dividends.
Data
Your turn
Dial up what matters to you. Dial down what doesn't.
Each group has one dial. Open a group to set each move on its own and see the evidence. Right of "Keep" is a saving. Left of "Keep" spends more.
Council's own Long Term Plan survey is open until 29 November 2026. Set your mix here, then tell them: myvoicemychoice.co.nz
Looks like a saving. Isn't.
Things we left out on purpose.
These come up every rates season. They don't move household rates, or they can't be touched.
| Item | Amount | Why it's not a saving |
|---|
Method
How we counted.
- Sources. Three audited annual reports, with a page reference on every move. Where the reports don't split a cost out, we use council's own figures from its 2 November 2026 Long Term Plan pre-engagement. A few published estimates are marked Low confidence.
- Base year. 2025/26 actuals, $NZ. Rates $153.3m, so 1 point of rates is $1.53m.
- Operating moves reduce rates dollar for dollar.
- Deferrals and sales reduce debt. We count only the interest saved, at 3.75%, council's weighted average borrowing rate (AR 2025/26 p117). A deferral delays a cost. It doesn't erase it.
- Sales net off any lost dividends or distributions.
- Per rates bill divides by 32,824 rateable assessments (AR 2025/26 p175). Real bills vary with land value and targeted rates.
- Likely to land is 65% of the paper number. Notice periods, contracts and tenders take time. Year one never delivers the full amount.
- Spending more. Dialling left of "Keep" adds cost at the same rate the cut would save.
- Overlaps. Each move sits on its own line of the accounts. Where two could touch the same dollars we cut the smaller back. The $140k+ salary move counts a third of its gross value for that reason.
- Protected. Water, roads, waste, regulatory and civil defence. Locked at "Keep" unless you unlock them.
- Not counted. One-off transition or redundancy costs. Sale proceeds for senior housing. Any market premium on the airport shares.
- Confidence. High: cost printed by council. Medium: derived from printed figures with one assumption. Low: our estimate.