The 7.67% rise proposed in council documents is more than double the 3.51% forecast in the Waitaki District Council's 2018-28 long-term plan.
At an additional meeting of the full council tomorrow, councillors will decide whether to formally adopt changes to operating budgets for the 2020-21 financial year, year three of the 2018-28 long-term plan.
They include additional spending of up to $6.375 million on top of the already approved $20.986 million.
Of the additional spending proposed, $948,000 is from rates funding.
More than a third of the proposed additional spending - $2.1 million - has been earmarked for the upgrade of Holmes Wharf, but will not have an impact on rates.
Potential rates-funded projects include $500,000 for the three waters project planning and compliance costs; $125,000 for Oamaru Harbour link roading projects; $95,000 for a 3 Waters project solid waste manager and $85,000 for a collection and exhibitions curator position at Culture Waitaki.
The fate of those projects will be decided tomorrow.
A report by the council’s accounting manager Ian Wells signalled the rates rise, based on a district-wide collection of $34,620,000 for the 2020-21 financial year.
Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher said Waitaki had been fortunate in that it had experienced relatively low rates rises in recent years, and that a larger increase was necessary to complete planned projects.
"We have really been driving an efficiency over the last six years and certainly over the last five years we have some of the lowest rates increases of council's across New Zealand.
"We have done that pretty well ... but we are at the stage where a lot of councils are feeling the pressure in different areas, like planning and water. It's causing a number of issues for all of us. Many councils are looking at higher increases. We are trying to keep ours down.
"There are some things that we absolutely have to do because they are legislated for and, given the events of the last few days, I think everyone will agree it's time to keep any increases as low as possible because it's, Covid-19, going to have such a big impact on our economy.''
He said deciding what to approve and discard was a "juggling act'', one that had to be carefully considered by the council.
"We are not expecting to have a 7% rates increase''.
There is scope for additional changes to be made until the end of June, based on public consultation, in addition to those made in closed-door workshops in December, February and earlier this month.
Councillors will also consider the public consultation process, which in council documents is scheduled for April 6 to April 30.
Multimillion-dollar projects include the $4.6 million upgrade to the Oamaru water reservoir, which failed during a 2018 weather event.
Spending on other schemes has been slashed or deferred to help fund the extensive upgrade to the plant.
Other allocations include funding for the North Otago cultural facilities project, to which $4.796 million has been committed.
The council's annual plan will be adopted on June 30.
