City Rates

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23080, 24 July 1940, Page 8

City Rates

The Christchurch City Council, at fts last meeting, adopted estimates which provide for a general rate of 3id, producing a revenue of [*146,597, or £11,292 less than last year. This reduction of id in the general rate is widened by reductions in the Domains Board, Fire Board, Hospital Board, water, and special rates, totalling £9619, with the result that the over-ail rate collection by the council is lightened to the extent of £20,911. The total estimated expenditure for 1940-41 reaches £259,211; the estimated expenditure last year was £261,014; the actual expenditure was £231,967. The farthing reduction in the general rate, the chairman of the finance committee claimed, should be > credited to the determination of the committee and in fact every member of the council “to make every effort to reduce the rates, seeing , *that the Government was compelled to * greatly increase Its taxation for purely war !“ purposes.” The farthing, however, is more

.noticeable than the effort to trim expenditure. As; the . figures show, - the estimates reach to within £IBOO of last year’s; and if expenditure is carried up to them, it will tap last year’s by {£27,000. 'Further, in the process, the balance forward from 1939-40, of £32,000, will have disappeared; The existence of this surplus, not any rigorous search for reduced expenditure, has enabled the council to find the margin for & "rate reduction; ,and it is obvious that .the margin will not recur next year unless the council’shows-in the next eight months the determination it professes to have shown already. In; other words,. the council must strive to underspend its estimates and renew the surplus;-or else it will face a very difficult problem in the next estimates. The reasons for saying so are written plainly enough in the hardening conditions of a people at war, in the rise of-material costs, likely to trouble the council seriously, and so on. Certain items of:

abnormal capital expenditure will of course

■ not -reappear. , But the fullest allowance for ' fhemand for a few other votes which bring

fntothis year expenditure projected in 1939-40 V does not greatly modify the outlook. The 1941- : j#2 estimates will be very hard to manage withr, .put a heavier demand on the ratepayers, unless -v : ■ fee current estimates .are systematically underspent. This object should be achieved without v reuch trouble. - It may be suspected, in fact, r |’|that..the been prepared with an J -aye to that end. For example, expenditure on ’v relief, between the works dereserves’department, totalled % u> year- and |ilmost the same total is current year;, but - that the for ; unemploydifficult to accept, at a time when -reserve of labour should be rapidly

called into service, This item figures prominently among those that conceal possible or probable contributions towards a surplus; but others, especially among the works, reserves and traffic'estimates, should be closely studied. Items of capital expenditure, even the smallest, must be reviewed from time to time, as they come forward in the programme. Standards of maintenance should not be relaxed until there is no alternative; but the council has yet to show that it appreciates the need for a conservative policy of - capital expenditure.