A council committee tasked with receiving operational reports from the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust met once in the two years before the trust’s current cash flow crisis.
Waipā District Council contracts the trust, which operates the $5000 per day world’s largest predator proof enclosure on Mount Maungatautari, to manage Maungatautari Scenic Reserve.
Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari
The council has a service agreement with the trust.
The project is partially funded by the Department of Conservation, Waikato Regional Council and Waipā District Council. But he Department of Conservation’s withdrawal of its community fund has left the project in a precarious position and Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari chief executive Helen Hughes campaigning for funds.
Helen Hughes at Maungatautari. Photo: Chris Gardner
Hughes, whose title changes from general manager to chief executive this month, went public with the trust’s cash flow crisis in June – six weeks after the Maungatautari Reserve Committee’s first meeting in two years.
In the two years since the committee had previously met in February 2022 it had lost its chair, councillor Elwyn Andree-Wiltens, after which the then mayor Jim Mylchreest was confirmed as her replacement, never chaired a meeting. He was trust chief executive from 2002-2009. “That reserve committee did not have oversight of money,” he told The News.
Waipā mayor Susan O’Regan paid tribute to the work of her predecessor Jim Mylchreest two years ago for his work on Sanctuary Mountain. They were pictured with Linda Te Aho (Ngāti Koroki Kahukura).
And cash flow had been a problem since the project began 20 years ago.
“It’s a real challenge,” Mylchreest said. “Effectively Maungatautari lives from hand to mouth.”
He believes the project is undervalued and called for a cost-benefit analysis and a fresh look at how it is funded.
Mike Montgomerie
By the time the committee met this year Mylchreest was no longer mayor and had been replaced as chair by Maungatautari ward councillor Mike Montgomerie.
Montgomerie was unaware of the lag between meetings, when The News spoke to him in May.
Hughes said the reserve committee received operational reports. Financial reporting was quarterly to the council’s finance committee whose members discussed them in public excluded sessions.
DOC’s seat on the committee was vacant on May 1, 2024, having been filled at the previous February 16, 2022, meeting by district operations manager Ray Scrimgeour. Scrimgeour has since been replaced by Jane Wheeler who did not attend the last meeting.
Sally Sheedy
Council Customer and Community Services group manager Sally Sheedy said in a statement that the committee met when needed and was just one mechanism by which the trust reported to the council. The trust regularly reports to the council’s Finance and Corporate committee on its financial position.
“There is no set meeting rotation, and its work focuses on overseeing matters that relate to the oversight of the reserve itself and the enclosures,” she said.
The date of the next committee meeting will be set when the trust has drafted its annual work plan.
