$6m Spending Limit For Tasman Council Boss

Friday, 3 October 2025, 5:43 pm
Article: Max Frethey - Local Democracy Reporter

The boss of Tasman District Council can now sign off on much bigger cheques without needing to back to elected members. 

On Thursday, the council agreed to increase the chief executive officer’s financial delegations from its current level of $1 million to $6 million. 

The change had been proposed to better align with the scale of the council’s major contracts. 

The chief executive can only use the spending sign-off on items that elected members have already approved and budgeted for through the council's long-term plans, annual plans, or separate resolution. 

But when the time comes to spend the cash, the chief executive will now not have to go back to councillors for approval. 

Spending on items valued less than $6m that are deemed to have a high strategic significance or community interest will still be directed to the council’s tenders and procurement panel, which is mainly comprised of elected members. 

Chief operating officer Steve Manners, who is currently acting chief executive, assured the council that the new approach reflected best practice. 

“I’m not seeking that the chief executive has a delegation to spend money to which there has not been approval given.” 

However, councillor Mark Greening had several concerns that the wording of the new spending limit was not specific enough, given that the council was in a “rather financially precarious position”. 

He pushed for amendments that would ensure abandoned projects weren't funded, restrict spending power to certain timeframes, exclude spending that was likely to be reviewed in future budgets, restrict spending to only maintenance or renewals, and sought further clarity on how community interest would be determined. “My concern is we may end up being committed to some procurement that we don’t necessarily [want],” Greening warned. 

He also felt that the council was “rushing” the decision, which should instead be made after the next long-term plan was adopted, so the chief executive had renewed policy clarity. 

Greening's proposed amendments failed because they lacked the support of the other elected members. 

“It would appear as though you’re working under the presumption that the CEO just wakes up in the morning and decides… to spend money,” Mayor Tim King said.

He said there was a “whole range” of other checks and balances that were in place to ensure the chief executive wouldn’t spend against the council’s intentions. 

“I’m just not convinced that the semantics around the wording are important in the context of the entire process that any one of these projects has to go through before it arrives on the desk of the CEO.” 

The matter was considered at the council’s final meeting of the term, an extraordinary meeting, after elected members requested that the proposal be considered by its audit and risk committee before coming back to the full council for a decision before the end of the triennium. 

Changes to the chief executive’s financial delegation were first proposed in July with a $10m limit. 

The two independent members of the audit and risk committee with expertise in financing and risk were comfortable with the changes to the chief executive's delegation. 

“If we have it too low, we create a risk because of people working around the system, splitting. We have controls in budget and [long-term plans],” said committee chair Graeme McGlinn the day before.

But some councillors thought the delegation was too high, with Trindi Walker indicating that she would support a lower $4m limit should the $6m proposal fail. 

However, nine elected members supported the change, with five – Jo Ellis, Mark Greening, Mike Kininmonth, Brent Maru, and Walker – voting against. 

The delegation limit will be reviewed after 12 months, with consideration given to all the procurements made over the course of the year, their value, their risks, and whether it was the chief executive or the tenders and procurement panel that approved the expenditure. 

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