Council proposes holding rates increase to under 1%

Rotorua residents are likely to see very little change in their rates bills this coming year as Rotorua District Council is proposing to hold the increase for total district rates to under 1%, below national inflation estimates of around 2%.

RDC chief executive Peter Guerin said the council and managers had spent many hours working through earlier preliminary financial estimates of expenditure and revenue for the 2010/11 financial year. They had been determined to prune the first cut of the draft budget which indicated a possible increase of up to 5.6%.

“The council had made it very clear that they wanted to keep rates increases within levels of inflation and we have been working through departmental budgets on a line by line basis to see where costs could be reduced.

“Under the proposals, most services would be retained at current levels although a reduction in book renewals for the District Library was proposed along with a reduced road sealing programme for some local roads.

“The end result is a draft annual plan that signals a total rates increase of just .98% for the 2010/11 year. We will be releasing that plan for community feedback at the beginning of April,” said Mr Guerin.

Finance Committee chairman Charles Sturt said the council had been working long and hard on achieving an absolute minimum rates increase and had been focussed on the task of keeping it under inflation estimates.

“I’m particularly pleased that we have been able to adjust budgets so that residents will notice little change to service levels while at the same time we have managed to include an increase in funding for improving waste recycling activities, and to boost tourism marketing in the all-important Australian visitor market.

“Councillors have been extremely mindful of the community’s ability to pay rates, especially given the difficult effects of the recessionary economic period we have been enduring over the last year or so.

“Rates levels way up above inflation would have simply been untenable and unacceptable to this council,” said Councillor Sturt.

Mr Guerin said while overall total rates in the district would increase by just .98% (taking into account an estimate for growth of 1%), for urban residential properties the increase would be an average of only .79%, or around 67 cents a week.

He said for rural residential properties the increase would average 1.64%, for farming properties 1.69%, and business properties just .8%

The Finance Committee proposals would now go to a meeting of the full council on 27 March for approval and the full draft annual plan would be released for public consultation and feedback on 1 April. Final decisions on the annual plan for 2010/11 would be made in late June.

Note: based on current GST rates