Council Releases Details From Secret Meeting

Saturday, 31 May 2025, 4:56 pm
Article: Matthew Rosenberg - Local Democracy Reporter

A southern council has released information on what took place behind closed doors this week.

Environment Southland’s finance and performance committee moved into a public excluded session on Wednesday for privacy reasons.

A report showed the topic of discussion was ‘bad debt to be written off’.

In response to questions, council general manager corporate services Patrick Ng said the committee accepted a recommendation to write off $10,000 owed by eight individuals.

The process was part of an annual review of overdue debt and was undertaken before the end of each financial year, he said.

“Some of that money has been secured by property lien and will be paid when the property next changes hands, the rest was deemed unrecoverable.”

Final write-off on the debt is still required at a full meeting of council.

Ng also said the council was on track to end the financial year with a “modest” surplus.

A finance report prepared for the meeting showed a surplus of $1.5 million was now forecast compared to a $1.2 million deficit predicted in the original budget.

There were two factors which contributed: additional income from MBIE for flood resilience projects and staff costs being less due to vacancies from the recent organisational review, he said.

The review relates to an April decision by the council to disestablish 51 roles and create 58 new ones.

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