Dunedin city councillors have trimmed 2.1% from forecast rates increases for the next financial year, reducing the expected burden to 5.2%, but must now wait to hear what ratepayers think of their efforts.
Regent Theatre Trust chairman Mike Shield is "quite relieved" the $6.4 million redevelopment of the theatre has emerged unaffected by the Dunedin City Council's budget cuts.
Dunedin city councillors have voted to defer part of a $3.3 million plan to redevelop the Logan Park pavilion.
Plans for the stage two upgrade of Dunedin's Tahuna treatment plant have been rejigged to ease the cost over the next few years.
Dunedin's public libraries emerged unscathed from proposed budget cuts yesterday, as the issue became a political rallying point in front of a packed public gallery.
Staff at the already stretched Dunedin Public Libraries will face job losses and the library could suffer cuts to its book budgets if a proposed $300,000 budget cut goes ahead.
Core services at the Otago Museum will suffer if proposed cuts to funding go ahead, the organisation says.
Opponents of the Lovelock Ave realignment say they will return to annual plan hearings in May to restate their opposition to the project, but are wondering why they were not listened to the first time round.
The Dunedin City Council faces a double whammy of lost revenue and community anger - at least from some sectors - if it defers some or all of a list of major capital projects in an effort to save money.
Proposed cuts to Dunedin's libraries budget would mean customer service levels and staffing would have to be reviewed, Dunedin City Council library services manager Bernie Hawke said yesterday.
The Dunedin City Council has managed to wring some money from its budgets using a method it has been using for some time - deferring its spending on depreciation.
The future of Dunedin's Lovelock Ave realignment appears to have been thrown wide open, after serious doubts emerged among some councillors at yesterday's annual plan meeting.
Changes to the rating system for farmers, bed and breakfast businesses and lifestyle blocks were approved for consultation, despite concerns from Cr John Bezett more consultation should have already been done.
Dunedin City Council staff have been told to come up with a more equitable way to raise rents for council housing tenants.
A multimillion-dollar budget for the redevelopment of Logan Park will be carried over to the 2010-11 year as planning for the project continues, Dunedin city councillors at yesterday's annual plan hearing were told.
The Dunedin City Council annual plan meeting began with finger-pointing yesterday, when council chief executive Jim Harland launched an attack on the media.
