YOUR VIEWS

That rainy day has come — freeze rates

I’ve been reading the council’s annual reports and the financial improvement over the past few years has been impressive.

The council has gathered up cash which is prudent in case there is a rainy day.

Well, that day has arrived, thanks to the economic fallout from Covid-19, and it is time the council gave some relief to its hardpressed ratepayers in the form of a rates freeze this year (or even a reduction).

If the BOP Regional Council and many others around the country can freeze rates due to Covid-19, so can the Western Bay District Council.

The operating surplus last year was $41.186 million — that equals 64 per cent of the total rates take!

After allowing for capital spending, the surplus of $19.308 million equals 30 per cent of rates.

Quite clearly the boom in new subdivisions has had a profoundly positive effect on the council’s finances. However, rather than deliver some of that dividend back to ratepayers in the form of small or nil rates increases, the council has more than doubled capital expenditure in the past five years.

Rate increases have been above the rate of inflation, with the result that we have the second-highest rates in the country.

There is plenty of room for the council to freeze rates as its debt

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■ servicing costs have nearly halved, the number of ratepayers paying rates has jumped and it sits on a pile of cash.

RODNEY JOYCE Katikati