Gore's new mayor will be expected to put his money where his mouth is after council overspending hit $4.5 million in the last financial year.
The council’s 2021-22 annual report was adopted at the first ordinary council meeting of the year yesterday.
Tabled by chief financial officer Lornae Straith, the report revealed the council had spent $32.3 million from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022.
Planned expenditure for this period was only $27.8 million.
This follows $2.2 million of overspending in 2020-21 and $2.5 million of overspending in 2019-20.
Mayor Ben Bell, who was elected in October last year after a campaign against wasteful spending, was relatively quiet on the matter at the meeting, as were other councillors.
The report said the overspending was driven by five main factors, the biggest being the $657,000 spent on consultants to backfill vacant positions.
Legal expenses were $371,000 over budget due to "an employment matter" and the case against the council regarding its plans to build a walking and cycling bridge across the Mataura River.
The acceleration of the district plan, which the report said enabled consultation to occur sooner, also incurred additional costs of $527,000.
The $465,000 expenditure for Mayor’s Taskforce for Jobs had not been budgeted for either, as this was dependent on funding being granted.
Inflationary increase in chemicals for Three Waters and aquatic centre activities equated to an extra $239,000 being spent in those areas, the report said.
Ms Straith said it was not a bad result.
"Given the year that we’ve had, with Covid, with inflationary pressures, with staffing shortages, the council’s actually done pretty well considering."
Overall the council recorded a surplus of $2.4 million against a budgeted surplus of $4.5 million. This is despite the council raking in an extra $2.5 million over the financial year, bringing its total income over the period to $34.8 million.
By Michael Curreen
