Wellington Museum and City Gallery are also in the firing line.<\/p>\n
Council papers outline proposals they be closed on Mondays, excluding public holidays, or remain open for cruise ship passengers with a new visitor charge.<\/p>\n
However, McNulty clarified during a briefing this morning that more information is to be sought on a potential Monday closure before proceeding with the proposal.<\/p>\n
WellingtonNZ, the capital\u2019s economic development agency tasked with promoting the city to tourists and businesses, is facing a $1m cut to its annual grant.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s annual New Year\u2019s Eve festivities, which feature fireworks, live music and food-trucks, would be cancelled, saving ratepayers a potential $290,000.<\/p>\n
A majority in the working group also support a \u201cno new playgrounds\u201d policy for the next 10 years.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s council-run swimming pools are also in the firing line, with recommendations to allow only one adult free supervision per child under-8, and additional supervising adults to be charged a full swim fee.<\/p>\n
School swim subsidies face being phased out progressively, saving up to $120,000 per year.<\/p>\n
Library cuts were discussed with options including closing some branches, reducing opening days or hours at under-used libraries, staff cuts and bringing back fees and charges.<\/p>\n
The working group decided on a full review into the cost effectiveness and efficiency of the city\u2019s libraries.<\/p>\n
Cuts to spending on library collections and online databases are also proposed.<\/p>\n
To increase revenue, parking charges could be increased through demand-based pricing and leasing or selling off road space.<\/p>\n
The only recommendation that would increase spending concerned resilience and hazard work, which McNulty said related to climate infrastructure, and follows April floods.<\/p>\n
Read the council\u2019s full list of suggested cuts here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Government\u2019s rates-capping legislation sets an initial 2\u20134% target range for annual council rates increases, with a 4% cap taking effect in 2029.<\/p>\n But councils have been told they must consider the 4% caps from July 1, 2027, when preparing their long-term plans.<\/p>\n Water charges are excluded, and councils can seek exemptions for exceptional circumstances, including natural disasters or prudent financial-management reasons. <\/p>\n Local Government Minister Simon Watts said that for too long ratepayers \u201chave been hit with steep and unexpected rates increases\u201d, citing median rises across the country of 14.2% and 9.2% in the last two years.<\/p>\n Minister Chris Bishop has said the policy aimed to prevent excessive council spending on non-essentials: \u201cit\u2019s a policy against $2.3 million for light-up public toilets<\/a> in Wellington\u201d, he told Parliament in August.<\/p>\n However, uncertainty remains over the reforms, with the Local Government (Rates Capping) Amendment Bill not passed in Parliament.<\/p>\n It is at the select committee stage and is expected to be discussed next term.<\/p>\n Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThere will be others [who] would want to see the council slash and burn down to the ground.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[95,806,118586,42574,1873,2199,8606,1259,5205,10666,58508,2082,738,42,10277,670,47148,9862,43,29691,36239,45642,5198,72726,23471,29056,7676,4062,2552,6753,25338,5076,11987,17933,8690,40,38,41,39,52,102],"class_list":["post-622204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-and","tag-as","tag-capping","tag-caps","tag-charges","tag-city","tag-closures","tag-community","tag-council","tag-cuts","tag-eyeing","tag-for","tag-funding","tag-headlines","tag-libraries","tag-library","tag-looming","tag-meet","tag-news","tag-order","tag-papa","tag-phase","tag-pool","tag-prepares","tag-proposals","tag-proposed","tag-rates","tag-school","tag-service","tag-shut","tag-slash","tag-subsidies","tag-sweeping","tag-swimming","tag-te","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wellington","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u201cNone of this is easy,\u201d Deputy Mayor Ben McNulty says of proposed service cuts. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n