A multimillion-dollar fund from the sale of a power scheme could protect an endangered fund to help Dunedin people pay their power bills.
City councillors are likely to be asked to use the more than $70 million Waipori fund to keep the Consumer Electricity Fund going.
The $200,000 electricity fund has been dropped from the pre-draft annual plan, and Cr Neil Collins yesterday put the case to restore it.
Cr Collins reminded councillors the electricity fund was established in the wake of the forced sale of the Waipori hydro-electricity scheme.
The sale marked the end of council-controlled cheap energy and the fund was supposed to help people struggling to pay growing bills.
The fund was established for the city's low-income battlers, and it should not be a yearly battle to get it through the annual plan process.
It should be paid directly from the Waipori fund so that it could not be cut from the plan.
Cr Kate Wilson noted the scheme might mean changing Waipori fund's rules so that the allocation was embedded and not made part of the annual plan.
Finance and corporate support general manager Athol Stephens said the Waipori fund paid a dividend - about $4 million this year - and that the council decided how to spend it.
Tagging $200,000 would change little - either way, it would be $200,000 not allocated to other projects.
Chief executive Jim Harland said it was a philosophical discussion that might still lead to a $200,000 spend that would otherwise come from rates.
After a more than six-hour meeting on draft annual plan matters yesterday, the future of the fund looked likely to be discussed today.
