QLDC CEO's powers under rating rules under spotlight

It is still unclear why an eleventh hour decision was made to pull an item on rating delegations from Thursday's full meeting of the Queenstown Lakes District Council.

In a report chief executive Mike Theelen had recommended the mayor and councillors delegate "all of the responsibilities, duties and powers" outlined in a piece of national legislation - the Local Government (Rating) Act - to him.

In addition, Mr Theelen had asked the mayor and councillors to "enable subdelegation" of a specified list of some of those responsibilities, duties and powers to other council staff members.

However when opening the meeting, held in Wānaka, the mayor advised those in attendance the item had been removed from the day's agenda.

After the meeting, Crux asked the council why the item was pulled from the meeting, why Mr Theelen was asking for the moves and whether the request is likely to pop up again at a later date, and if any actions had been taken by him or his members of staff for which they did not have an appropriate delegation.

A spokesperson for the council has today delivered a two line response to those questions.

"After the item had been published as part of the meeting agenda council officers became aware that further information was required to fully reflect what was being proposed," the spokesperson says.

"That work is ongoing and a replacement item will be presented to council at a future meeting."

Included in the chief executive's report was a table with three columns - the first detailing sections of the Local Government (Rating) Act, the second, a descriptor for that section, and the third, the titles of council staff members to whom the chief executive wanted to be able to delegate to.

One of the table's rows was given to section 62 of the act, which covers recovering unpaid rates from persons other than property owners.

According to the report, the chief executive wanted the mayor and councillors to enable him to subdelegate the responsibilities, duties and powers related to that section of the legislation to four different staff - the assurance, finance and risk general manager, the finance manager, the financial services team leader, and the the rates team leader.

In May, Crux reported the council had contacted the banks of 594 property owners looking to retrieve outstanding rates money from them.

At that time, more than $7 million in overdue rates was owed to the council.

A month later, Crux reported on a ratepayer forced into an unauthorised overdraft after the council took $3,365 from his bank account unannounced.

The council's delegations register available online and last updated in July 2024 does not appear to include any subdelegations related to the Local Government (Rating) Act.

Main image (QLDC)