Tasman District Council’s Annual Report for 2024/2025 was adopted at the October 30 council meeting - outlining our overall performance and position for the year ending 30 June, 2025.

The Annual Report is an important tool for the Council to show how we performed over the past year, reporting on our financial position and how well we met agreed service levels and budgets.

Chief Executive Leonie Rae said “managing financial pressures in all areas of operation has remained a focus over the last 12 months and will remain so going forward, so that we can continue to provide value and a high level of service delivery to our ratepayers.”

“As always, we would like to thank the community, our elected members, staff, iwi, volunteers and contractors for their contributions throughout the year to support the place we live in.

Audit New Zealand issued a clean opinion on the Council’s financial statements, except for a qualification due to challenges in assessing damage from the June–July 2025 severe weather events. This was due to the difficulty in separating and quantifying the impacts before and after 30 June.

The Council prepares its financial statements after 30 June, this is followed by a rigorous external audit. Under the Local Government Act, audited statements must be adopted by 31 October, often by newly elected councillors due to the timing of local elections.

The Annual Report, which will be made available to the public on the Council’s website, libraries and service centres, highlights a busy and productive 2024/2025 year for the Council;

Infrastructure improvements to Wensley Road and Port Tarakohe.

• Adoption of the Māpua Masterplan, Reserve Management Plans for the Richmond and Lakes-Murchison Wards, as well as the Waimea River Park Management Plan.
• Several Tasman Resource Management Plan (TRMP) Plan Changes, not to mention making the TRMP more accessible as an online document.
• Responding to new Central Government requirements – particularly around Resource Management Act reform, Local Water Done Well and Speed Management.
• Improving our resilience for future weather events, with stage two of stopbank improvements along the Lower Motueka River beginning in early 2025.
• Key progress made on stormwater projects and investment, through the upgrade to Motueka West and the purchase of land to carry out future works on the Borck/Poutama Creek system.

We measure our performance in delivering services to our community using targets set in Tasman’s 10-Year Plan 2024-2034.

Of the 94 targets we report on in 2024/2025, we fully achieved 64 (or 68%) of our targets and a further six were within 5% of the target.

Our net external debt at 30 June 2025 was $271.3 million. This is below the planned forecast of $280.0 million.

Achieving or budgeting for a surplus, and any variance between the two, does not mean that rates have been over or undercharged. Surpluses can result from non-cash items such as vested assets or valuation changes, which increase reported revenue without adding actual cash to the Council.

The 2024/25 accounting surplus (as reported in the Statement of Comprehensive Revenue and Expense) was $2.8 million, which is $29.9 million lower than the budgeted surplus of $32.7 million.

This variance was mainly due to lower non-cash income and gains, reduced development contributions and vested assets (due to lower growth), and increased costs in maintenance, depreciation (due to cost inflation), and finance expenses (due to increased interest rates). These were partially offset by higher carbon credit proceeds and reduced grants and levies paid.

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