Rates pitch now 15.5%

Mayor Andrew King has backed down marginally on his rates rise proposal – from 16.5 to 15.5 per cent – but has added a user-pays rubbish charge.

King floated the 16.5 per cent rate in November.

His budget proposal for the coming decade, publicly released yesterday, is based on a 15.5 per cent jump in rates.

Hamilton city councillors will debate his choices for the longterm plan on Wednesday, but first they have to wade through the 1000 pages of the budget and staff reports.

The increase would add about $340 to the rates for an average Hamilton house, council papers said, taking the bill to $2530.

‘‘I’m a businessman and what’s driving me is balancing our books,’’ King said.

‘‘I’m not here to try to be a popular mayor at the expense of running our books in an unbalanced manner.’’

Council isn’t meeting day-today costs through rates, so money is being borrowed for that purpose, chief executive Richard Briggs said.

That’s like paying for a power bill on a credit card and just paying off interest for the next decade.

The rates rise is to stop that. It will not be for money to put into developing the Peacocke area, Briggs said

‘‘Let’s say we closed the city down today and there was no growth.

‘‘We would still need fifteen and a half per cent.’’

However, extra income will give the city more borrowing power – and it can use some of that for Peacocke.

Two other rate rise options are in the council papers, the first being a 9 per cent increase the first year, a 6 per cent increase the next, and 3.8 per cent a year after that.

The other is for a 12 per cent rate rise, followed by a return to annual 3.8 per cent rises. King has also suggested changes to the way council rates: an immediate switch to full capital value and a $500 uniform annual general charge.

Ratepayers would also be putting their hand in their pocket for rubbish and recycling collection under King’s proposal.

He recommends council shift to a three wheelie-bin system with a $5 user charge for weekly collections, although further detail is still to come.

Projects retained in King’s budget include the Waikato Regional Theatre, Hamilton Gardens development, a town centre for Rototuna, and a central city park between Victoria on the River and Embassy Park.

‘‘Without a vision, the people perish,’’ King said.

‘‘I’m a mayor who wants to deliver’’.

The budget also contains provisions for maintaining and replacing assets the city already has, King says.

He’s recommending that the Hamilton iSite close in July 2018, that council lift the minimum wage for direct employees to $20, and that council spend $3m on ‘‘reimagining local government’’.

He has asked Briggs to find $5m in savings in the next financial year and more in the two after that.

‘‘I can’t go out to my ratepayers and expect them to pay a rates increase in the teens and not challenge the chief executive to find . . . better ways of doing business through our organisation,’’ King said.

Councillors will meet on Wednesday to formally debate what should and shouldn’t be in the long-term plan budget which Briggs has described as the most significant decision council will make this term.