A busy week looms for Dunedin city councillors, who will today participate in a full council meeting, followed by at least three days of deliberating on the council's draft annual and long-term budgets, during which some big decisions must be made - in the light of bad news last week about Forsyth Barr Stadium finances.
At the meeting councillors will consider authorising for release for public consultation the economic development strategy for Dunedin which was released last week, consider a report on the findings of the independent review of stadium costs, plus digest and act on a report recommending transferring governance responsibilities of council companies that operate and manage the stadium to Dunedin City Holdings Ltd.
The latter follows concerns about the stadium's operating model after a nearly $2 million loss in the stadium's first six months was revealed last week.
The stadium cost review last week revealed it cost $8.4 million more than expected to build and costs had not included $18 million of interest accrued during construction, bringing the final stadium bill to $224.4 million, up from the original $198 million price tag.
The review identified a range of project management failings on the part of the council.
On Tuesday, councillors will start their deliberations on draft budgets with the aim of finalising the council's spending plans for 2012-13 to 2021-22.
Councillors have been trying to cap the increase on rates next year at 5%, but the draft budget already included an overall rates rise of 4.9% before various community organisations lined up at hearings last week to ask councillors for new or more funding.
The stadium's operating losses and the need to take out a loan for the extra stadium construction costs have added to the pressure on the council's self-imposed 5% rates rise cap.
After the stadium announcements, council staff have spent the past few days scrabbling to find more savings on top of those already identified in the draft budgets.
Staff are expected to report to councillors about where savings have been found as they start making decisions tomorrow morning about where costs will be cut and which projects can be delayed or scrapped in order to keep rates rises down.
Mayor Dave Cull last week said the stadium issues would certainly make its budget considerations more challenging.
Although the council had been trying to reduce costs without affecting council services, he would not rule out possible cuts to services as a result of the cost-saving efforts.
