Rotorua Rates Notices Are in the Post

Rotorua ratepayers will get their rates notices in the post starting this weekend.

Nearly 29,000 invoices left Rotorua Lakes Council yesterday (Thursday 30 July) either by email, to those who prefer to get their account electronically, or to NZ Post.

Mayor Steve Chadwick said the council needed to get 7 per cent more from its ratepayers this financial year – from $77 million last year to $82.5 million this year – because rates had been kept unsustainably low since 2008.

Rate increases after this year would return to about the rate of inflation. Council will pay off $18.5 million of group debt over the next 10 years.

The rate increases this year will vary between properties, said Mrs Chadwick (see attached frequently asked questions).

The impact on rates for individual properties would also be affected by capital revaluations, the level at which council set the Uniform Annual General Charge and any changes to the business and rural residential differentials.

“Previous councils kept rate increases low for many years to help residents get through challenging economic times and borrowed heavily to keep rate rises down, but that was false economy.

“As a council we’ve made some difficult decisions in considering projects, service levels, budgets and funding sources.

“We slashed $9.3m from council’s budget and asked staff to work on removing more but there’s a limit before you start affecting service levels and putting assets at risk.

“We’ve acknowledged that we have to take a short-term hit. Our long-term planning process showed us that Rotorua’s future prosperity depends on that.”

Following a review of council’s financial position after the 2013 election, councillors agreed that debt, efficiency and effectiveness were their major priorities.

“Non-rates revenue reduced from 2008 onwards while costs rose,” she said.

“Some activities had become underfunded so council borrowed to fund the gap between revenue and costs.”

The rising debt impacted on capital works, constraining future projects and proposals.

“Council has a number of must-do capital projects, a significant amount of work that is needed to maintain infrastructure and upgrade community facilities.

“This will require significant investment with council planning to spend up to $320m during the next 10 years. In order to get this work done, council had to consider its options – either take on more debt or look at its funding sources.

“While council’s current level of debt is within acceptable limits, significantly increasing debt further to fund capital works would be unsustainable,” said Mrs Chadwick.

ENDS

© Scoop Media