Mayor backs Hobart rate rise of 3.5%

HOBART ratepayers will pay $90 more on average next financial year if the council’s budget is approved at next week’s meeting.

Hobart City Council’s 2019-20 budget estimates passed their first hurdle last night with the finance and governance committee recommending an average rate increase of 3.5 per cent.

Alderman Damon Thomas, supported by committee chair Ald Marti Zucco, attempted to have that reduced by 0.225 per cent — the cost of administering the $200,000 height limit plebiscite — but it was defeated in a 2-3 vote.

Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds told the committee it was not a “dramatic increase” and would ensure the council stuck to its long-term financial plan.

“The average person in Hobart would prefer we run a good organisation, a financially healthy organisation,” she said. “This is a modest increase, we are a city that’s growing rapidly.”

The budget estimates report said the council’s rates revenue would rise $4 million to almost $89 million next financial year. The average residential ratepayer would be billed an extra $74 plus a fire services levy of $11, while most non-residential properties would have rate increases of between 3.8 and 4.3 per cent. The budget forecast a $764,000 surplus in 2019-20, with a 3 per cent rate increase in following years.

Ald Zucco said the rate increase could have been 2.7 to 2.8 per cent without the height limits poll and if the decision on Southern Cross Care paying rates went the other way, which cost $400,000.

General manager Nick Heath said the estimates were prepared on the basis of the long-term financial strategy designed to provide for the city’s ongoing financial sustainability.

“[It’s] designed to ensure the city can continue to provide its extensive range of services and the infrastructure required of a capital city, both now and into the future, without burdening future generations of ratepayers with large rates increases or cuts to services,” he said.

The proposed average rate increase was well above the inflation rate of 2.1 per cent, but Mr Heath said it should also be measured in the context of the council cost index of 3.38 per cent. Clarence’s average rate increase was 2.9 per cent and Kingborough’s 3.95.

The budget must be passed by an absolute majority of seven votes next week.