Kaipara District Council
August 14th, 2012 at 3:00 pm by David FarrarAdam Bennett at NZ Herald reports:
Government appointed commissioners are to take over management of the heavily indebted Kaipara District Council, Local Government Minister David Carter says.
Mr Carter said the council requested the appointment of independent commissioners today after being briefed by a Government appointed review team on the report it would submit to him this week.
Mr Carter ordered the review in May saying the financial situation at the Northland resort town was urgent and action was needed.
Kaipara’s debts total $80.7 million including about $60 million for the Mangawhai sewerage scheme, leading the council to propose a 31 per cent average rate increase, which had ratepayers up in arms.
“Kaipara District Council is facing a range of problems including the size of its debt, invalidity of previous rates, management of its infrastructure and loss of confidence amongst parts of the community”, Mr Carter said today.
“The Council’s request to appoint commissioners under the Local Government Act is made in the best interests of the district, and I applaud that.”
I think local ratepayers will be applauding the decision. This is what happens when debt rises to an unsustainable level.
August 14th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
I have zero sympathy for the “ratepayers”.
They consistently elected the group of councilors that ran up this debt.
It’s no ones fault but their own, if rates need to go up by 31% to pay the bills, so be it.
Hell mend them.
Vote:August 14th, 2012 at 3:21 pm
I think it’d be wise to wait for the Auditor General’s report on the sewage scheme before jumping to conclusions.
Vote:Certainly if information was available for ratepayers & they were in a position to choose whether the debt should be incurred Alan would have a point, but he appears to assume there was free and open access to all the information at the time, an assumption that is tenuous.
This is not a bad read, but the story is even uglier is my understanding.
http://joelcayford.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/mangawhai-bankrupts-kdc.html
August 14th, 2012 at 3:26 pm
The Kaipara Councilors who raised this debt should be jailed.
..and so should the big spending central government politicians in Wellington who will one day soon cause a similar collapse in NZ’s national finances.
Vote:August 14th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
When Commissioners are appointed, do they take over the role of Councillors, the Council management, or both? What checks and balances are put in place?
[DPF: Councillors only]
Vote:August 14th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
KDC is another example which proves that we have far too many local authorities for such a small population. Perhaps part of the Commissioner’s brief should be to look at the viability of the entire council and whether there would be value in amalgamation.
Vote:August 14th, 2012 at 4:02 pm
Central Government needs to reign in the power of councils to incur debt right now because so many are recklessly doing so. It’s not the ratepayers fault, those who do vote tend to elect councillors whose names begin with the first letters on the alphabet
Vote:and the same deadheads get elected term after term. They go along with the recomendations of the CEO in constructing large edifices commemorating their term in office. The CEO’s salary is calculated on the value of so-called assets (really liabilities)he is in charge of, so we end up with spiralling debt and rate increases without thought to the inevitable Kaipara emulation.
August 14th, 2012 at 4:31 pm
There’s no value in amalgamation Lloyd. Better off breaking them up into smaller boroughs and centralise the bulk of their current responsibilities. They can then concentrate on collecting rubbish. Something they’re more likely to be skilled at.
Trouble is they all think they’re real politicians. Unfortunately there’s not enough interest in local politics for any of them have any sort of mandate. They’re voted in by interest groups and, as someone previously said, by people voting for the 1st name on the ballot.
Vote:August 14th, 2012 at 4:36 pm
Well if it was RATEPAYERS who voted rather than all the uncle Toms and beneficiaries etc we might get some better spending.
It might be a good idea while they are sunning themselves on the Kaipara if the commissioners were also assigned the task of looking at this fellow.
http://www.telstraclear.co.nz/news/news-story.cfm?content_id=839095
The Far North Mayor has been handed a rates bill of $75,000 and a warning to keep his personal and official roles separate.
Vote:August 14th, 2012 at 5:14 pm
but the councillors & officials who drove this won’t get sacked nor jailed.
Vote:They’ll carry on using the ratepayers as a bank.
August 14th, 2012 at 5:20 pm
Keep in mind that the council is still in debt. Unless you want your taxes to go to paying off the debts these elected councillors incurred as well as paying your own rates, those ratepayers, even with commisioners in place, are still going to have to pay the bills. They had better look forward to potholes and cracked footpaths for several years.
So its not a case of, as Steve Hansen says, flush the dunny and move on. At least when they do flush it it will have a gold plated sewage scheme to flow into.
Vote:August 14th, 2012 at 5:53 pm
It seems like one helluva wastewater system.
Councils all around the country are wrestling with requirements from central government over waste water.
The Hastings District Council which has a debt of around $100m, has spent something like $14m on dropping wastewater over plastic discs to appease the requirements of the local iwi.
Of course if anyone queried this method they were racist.
Vote:August 14th, 2012 at 6:14 pm
Sadly, within New Zealand, the appointment of ‘Commissioners’ in response to local authority over-spending is nothing new, with the process first coming to public attention when Thames Borough Council went into ‘ Commissioner administration’ in the 1920′s and remained in that state for some 10 years. To be fair though, in the Thames situation the Council had been heavily-reliant on revenue from the gold mines, a source of income which which had effectively come to an end after 1914.
Historically, The KDC is merely the latest example – no doubt there will be others.
Vote:August 14th, 2012 at 9:24 pm
Auckland’s next the way we are going.
Vote:August 14th, 2012 at 9:27 pm
The tragedy is Northland has gone backwards so fast with Wayne Brown as Mayor. One hopes the rumours regarding John Carter standing next election are true, after Mr Brown’s power trip trying to get a unified council whilst influencing the council regarding his rates bill it’ll take a fair bit to return any confidence in his office, business confidence is very very low.
Vote:I’m surprised the A-G stopped at the rates bill though & didn’t ask for a full audit of the major decisions taken whilst he has been in power.
August 15th, 2012 at 6:21 am
While I agree with the first commenter that the voters put in this idiot lot, there is a rather more close to home comparison:
we (though may I add certainly not me) voted in Len Brown, who is quite determined to bankrupt Auckland with his insane train set. I note some of the massive rates increases which are very much just the beginning.
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 7:45 am
Yes, it is always easy to criticise elected Councils.
BUT …. the current legislation leaves them hamstrung, passing all real administrative and operational power to a Chief Executive and a bureaucracy that is paid at a rate grossly disproportionate to their requiremenmt to GENERATE income (zero!).
Ther real problem is a lack of responsibilioty.
If a local body goes broke, the rest of NZ must bail thrm out, pay off their debts and so.
In the US of A – No way. Jeffersion County Alabama (pop 6700,000 odd) is now bankrupt with debts of several billion. Stockton, Ca, likewise, similarly Harrisburg, Va.
Here in NZ we have proposed legislation to “reform” local Governmert. But the underlying problerms will remain. The corporate model will not work. Councillors, it seems take all the electoral responsibility, but do not have the powers of company directors (to hire, fire, set remuneration packages etc).
It is time to go back to basics. Sheet home responsibility and all powers to those elected by the folk who must meet the cost – ALL RESIDENTS, NOT JUST RATEPAYERS.
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 8:52 am
It’s usually not the elected councilors who dream up these large spending programs, it’s the armies of staff in the back offices who put together all this stuff. And then the councilors get to vote on it, but even they often do not get all of the information, or get it like an hour before the meeting.
The public are mostly excluded from this kind of information, and are often excluded from the meetings where these things are discussed, see here: http://www.theworkbootcouncillor.net.nz/workboot-blogs/with-sins-of-omission-is-it-time-for-a-commission/ for examples of this. Time and time again the ratepayers of the Kaipara District Council have been excluded from attending meetings on spurious reasons.
So the criticism of the public for not taking an active role in keeping their councils honest is actually pretty naive.
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 9:13 am
Why not bankruptcy?
I’m sure the council were assuring ratepayers that spending was under control and that the CEO’s high salary was justified.
Sounds like my council. But, usually the dollar shock does not hit until years later at which time the current council denies all responsibility (it was the last lot…) while continuing the same types of irresponsible spending as the last lot.
I never used to care much about the local council.
But, now they are really hitting me in the pocket I absolutely dislike the people who work there. Not just the council as an organisation either, I dislike the people.
Vote:August 15th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
Tauranga, one of the most indebted Councils has appointed Lying Len’s pal, Leigh Auton as Acting CEO.
Vote:In theory it is only temporary – but noises are that it may not always be that way – its a good paying number.
But letting the Fox into the Chickens roost is very unhealthy. Understand from one (female) senior staff member he is wonderful.
Previous new CEO passed away suddenly.