Groups compete for council funds
Kids Greening Taupō is one of the organisations to receive council funding.
“(It’s) heartening that there are so many organisations doing amazing work across a broad spectrum… and disheartening because I wish we had more money that we could put towards supporting them.”
In acknowledging 41 applications to its multi-year strategic partnership and accelerator funds requesting over $1 million, but with only $460,000 available to distribute across both funds, Taupō’s Deputy Mayor Kevin Taylor knew there were going to be some dispirited applicants after the Taupō District Council meeting on February 25.
“On behalf of all of us… I’m seriously impressed with most of the applications. Regrettably some of them did not hit the mark in terms of what we’re looking for and there will be some disappointed people but that’s the nature of the decision making.”
In the five areas for the $300,000 strategic partnership fund (sport, arts and culture, climate risk, community wellbeing, and sustainable transport), Sport Waikato got the nod and $50,000* because of its regional focus and breadth while councillors still wanted to support the Lake Taupō Sports Advisory Council (LTSAC) by later providing it $20,000 from the accelerator fund.
Council officers recommended that Creative Waikato – fulfilling a region wide role – should be funded ahead of Creative Taupō and Towncentre Taupō in the category covering arts and culture.
However, councillor Anna Park opened the discussion by indicating a desire to stick with the local arts organisation, Creative Taupō.
“Because we’ve never had arts dealt with at a regional level, I don’t see a reason to change that.”
Creative Taupō had a succession plan in place, she said, and local knowledge which the council was lucky to be able to benefit from – analysis which found favour with other councillors.
Council events and venues manager Steve Giles suggested councillors needed to ponder whether Creative Taupō was at strategic level and looked durable enough or would benefit from the accelerator fund initially to build capability for partnership status in three years’ time.
But councillor Yvonne Westerman said the $20,000 from the accelerator fund would not “cut the mustard” for the projects the group had outlined. It had good personnel and made a very strong presentation, she said.
Rachel Shepherd also commented on Creative Taupō’s complete strategy, succession plan and that a partnership with Creative Waikato would be a new move for the council.
“We’ve got no track record with them either, so I wonder if we’d be better off backing our own horse and continuing to build that capability.”
Council staff advising the meeting felt that Towncentre Taupō’s application wasn’t broad enough to encompass the brief of helping the council plan for the future of its art facilities and the community and while it had not applied for an accelerator fund grant, it would be eligible to apply for a one-off community grant.
Climate risk and environmental well-being attracted three applications (Greening Taupō, Seacleaners Trust and the Taupō Community Gardens Trust) – with Greening Taupō scoring the highest in the council officer’s assessment and finding favour with councillors.
Taylor said he was a little surprised the community gardens scored lower than the Sea Cleaners Trust as its project to buy a boat to travel around the lake skimming rubbish was easily discounted – even if the boat was, as Mayor David Trewavas pointed out, electric.
There would be an awful lot of driving around to find rubbish to pick up, said Tayor.
“To my mind, it’s a ‘no’. It doesn’t come close to the purpose we’re looking for.”
Community well-being attracted seven applications, with the nod eventually going to the Waiora Community Trust, to support operational costs.
Rachel Shepherd said she felt Taupō community social services would not be able to function without the trust.
“We’ve built this building specifically for social services, they’ve got a track history… I think we’d be very silly not to support them.”
To Park’s question that if the council didn’t support the trust was there a suggestion the council had spent the “best part of $10 million” on a white elephant, Shepherd countered that the trust board had done a lot of work on strategic and business planning.
“I have all faith in the board’s ability to carry out exactly what it is that they are offering.”
Mangakino Ward representative Kirsty Trueman felt the policy for deciding strategic partnerships in community well-being needed tweaking so a group like the Mangakino Central Charitable Trust, an applicant to be a strategic partner as well as to the accelerator fund, could be accommodated as a high-level partner alongside Waiora Community Trust.
“We’ve always supported that too as they carry out those same things in our community. We need to keep supporting that, with a strategic partnership.”
As it was the first time the council had used the model, there would be a few “curve balls” thrown up by the policy, said Taylor.
“Unless you run it in real life you don’t identify all of the pitfalls.”
Council staff said there were a range of ways the policy could be amended after the initial three-year period by having different priorities for the distribution of the funds, with Kylie Leonard adding that the philosophy was to not have organisations always reliant on council but to become self-sustaining over time.
Taylor said options ahead could involve increasing the money pool within each bucket, or setting up an entirely different funding regime, like other Bay of Plenty councils had with energy trusts, using interest generated by the Taupō Electricity Limited (TEL) fund.
(According to the TDC’s 2023/24 Annual Report the TEL value was at $70.6m on 30 June 2024.)
“I know that’s not on our radar at the moment but there is no reason why in years to come we couldn’t look at something like that… those trusts give away millions of dollars a year, not the few hundred thousand that we’ve got, but that’s a future conversation.”
The final category, sustainable transport choices, having only one application from Bike Taupō was an easy decision.
Park said the organisation had returned about $20 million to the economy and created employment.
“They do such a good job, and they get on and do it without any complaints or bureaucracy.”
The council split the available $300,000 into $50,000 each to Sport Waikato, Creative Taupō and Greening Taupō while $70,000 went to Waiora Community Trust and $80,000 Bike Taupō.
(*Figures are plus GST per annum, for three years up until 30 June 2027.)
The eight available accelerator fund amounts of $20,000 pa for three years received 24 applications and those successful were: Mangakino Central Charitable Trust, Tūrangi Rangatahi Hub, Taupō School of Music, Lake Taupō Sports Advisory Council, Taupō Sculpture Trust, Volunteer Great Lake Taupō, Kids Greening Taupō and Safer Turangi.
A further $240,000 is also available to groups in the district’s three one-off community funds which the meeting decided to configure as $150,000 available in Taupō and Taupō East Rural, $40,000 in Mangakino-Pouakani and $50,000 in Tūrangi-Tongariro.