Rates capture, particularly water as a result of the hot summer, an improvement in general rates and collection of rates arrears has driven Rotorua Lakes Council revenue to more than $500,000 ahead of budget.

The council's operating and monitoring committee was told today and in the 10 months to April this year, overall revenues continued to perform well.

The year to date performance was tracking ahead of budget by $575,000, councillors have been told.

With two months left of the financial year, 2018/2019 can be summarised so far, from an operational environment, as challenging despite the impact of:

■ Continuing costs as a result of the prior year floods.

■ Extreme price volatility in the electricity market.

■ Environmental court costs.

■ Increased costs in order to enhance inner city security.

■ Delayed roll out of parking technology.

Despite the challenges, the business of council has responded to the financial pressure while continuing to provide core services to the community while managing costs and expenses.

Parking revenues are below budget, the council says.

Revenue was impacted by delays in the full implementation of the parking rollout and required updates to the traffic bylaw.

May 2019 should show an increased trend in revenue as these items are addressed.

The high level of maintenance on the aging waste water treatment plant has also necessitated a higher than expected spend on maintenance works (operating expenses).

In addition, in order to ensure the EEC provides a world class service, additional works were required firstly to repair the roof and prepare and paint a number of areas, the council says.

Spot electricity prices remain high as a result of reduced hydro storage, a national increase in demand and gas outages which has created supply and demand issues.

The council is closely monitoring the spot prices and reviewing contracts for specific periods that will offer best value to ratepayers in order to mitigate risk to budget.

Managing staff hires and or absorbing roles internally has allowed the council to keep costs at 2 per cent below budget presently.

Capital expenditure for the 10 months at the end of April was $42.1m with the top five projects by spend totalling $24.3m, at 60 per cent.

The majority of this overall spend, 33 per cent, is driven by the Rotoiti/Rotoma sewerage scheme construction and reticulation works.

A further 10 per cent is driven by repairing and maintaining roads (resealing), culverts and footpaths (e.g. Steeles Lane with 7 per cent driven by ongoing repairs/preventative works for storm damage e.g. Paradise Valley and Tarawera roads).

Water Supply upgrade works (e.g. at Mamaku and Taniwha) accounted for a further 4 per cent with the balance spread across a number of ongoing projects largely for sports and recreational activities that individually are not material (e.g. Westbrook netball courts).