Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher said saving ratepayers $450,000 a year for the duration of the contract — a three-year term, with a two-year rollover — was the "right decision".
Nevertheless, he called it "mixed news".
"The ideal result for us would have been to have gone out, saved a lot of money for ratepayers and had Whitestone carry on doing the job — we got half of it," Mr Kircher said.
"Fundamentally, we’ve got to make decisions for our 22,000 residents and that’s why we’re here, to make the hard decisions."
He said the expected redundancies at Whitestone Contracting were top of mind for councillors during their deliberations, but noted that Downer indicated through the tendering process it would be employing 16 people to carry out the work.
Mr Kircher said he hoped the majority of those hirings were made locally.
No decision had been made on where the money saved would be spent, but the savings for the council could amount to about a 1.5% rates saving for ratepayers.
Whitestone Contracting, established in 1991, carried on from the council’s works department and has always had the contract to maintain council’s parks, gardens, cemeteries, sports fields, and public toilets.
This was the first time the council took its parks maintenance contract to the market.
Whitestone Contracting chief executive Glenn Campbell said the decision could affect "potentially 19" employees.
"At the end of the day, it’s unfortunate that we have lost the contract, but we’re doing everything we can to help those affected staff into other positions really — that will happen over the next couple months."
He declined to comment further.
Whitestone’s website states the company employs "approximately" 130 people.
Waitaki District Council community services manager Dr Thunes Cloete said the council had been paying an estimated $2.1million a year for the work, but the winning contract price from Downer was $1,641,029.38.
The tendering process was in part brought about by "new legislation", the Local Government Act 2002 section 17A, delivery of services, requiring councils to review service delivery to ensure it was "effective, efficient and providing value to our ratepayers".
The tendering process was a test of parks spending, but also the council had brought in a consultant to review the cost-effectiveness of the Whitestone contract.
"And also this contract came up for renewal, so it was sort of a perfect time to do it."
Council chief financial officer Paul Hope said last year Whitestone Contracting provided a return to council of about $520,000.
Mr Kircher said he did not believe the loss to the council from a reduced return would be "near [the] amount" of the savings, which were "a $450,000 dividend before you actually get the (Whitestone Contracting) dividend".
The new contract starts in November this year.
