Rates promises meaningless—Mayor

Press, 27 April 1981, Page 6

Rates promises meaningless—Mayor

i lA E ab ?* r Party Promises to ‘£o0 rate , incre ases had been ineanmgtess mouthings of ?h nbl J 1 * ous PoWicians,” said /Mr ° f T Cf >ristch U rch (Mr Hamish Hay) at the week-end. y> h

- R ay was reacting to comments by Cr Vicki Buck tnat this years proposed 20 C^S ent .. rates , increa se was J2»ia U k tia y J cwer ” than it would have been under a citizens Association council

The cold hard facts are as Cr Buck and her Labour colleagues have discovered, that the City Council is hot immune from the effects of “igh inflation,” Mr Hay said. The total rate increase would almost certainly be h J gher than 20 per cent When Drainage Board and Transport Board rises were added to the City Council figure, he said.

Salary and wage rises, coupled with the effect of tying council employee pay to State awards, had “played havoc” with estimates this year, Mr Hay said. , *’ R is much easier said than done to reduce staff, or to restructure the council organisation in the way that many big New Zealand companies have been forced to

do in recent years in order to survive:” Mr Hay said. Labour election proposals to change the city's rubbish disposal system, with an emphasis on recycling, would mean an extra cost to ratepayers of more than $600,000 this year. Limiting next year's issue of rubbish bags to 25 per household, instead of the normal 50, would bring “very strong criticism from ratepayers who are accustomed to one bag a week,” he said.

The council had an unexpected surplus of more than $450,000 this year, and that would help the reported “cuts” in original spending proposals, Mr Hay said. The surplus was due to factors such as higher interest earnings from the city abattoir sales and other short-term investments.

That carry-forward money reflected credit on the previous Citizens’ administration. “Another windfall in the 1981 estimates which has assisted the so-called cuts has been an unexpected, recently announced rise in driver’s licence fees,” Mr Hay said. The council could get

about $150,000 this year from that source. Mr Hay was a member of the budget sub-committee. He said that Cr Buck and the committee had done a "very conscientious and thorough job” on the whole. “I have been impressed with Cr Buck's willingness to challenge existing practices and endeavour to make senior officers justify their proposed expenditure,” Mr Hay said.

“But she will need to develop more of the toughness of a Margaret Thatcher before she can score any significant victories over experienced engineers and other professions, and. indeed, some of her own free-spend-ing Labour colleagues.” The Mayor of Auckland (Mr Colin Kay) has been rebuffed in his bid to freeze rates and cut $3 million from this year's council budget. Only $27,500 was shaved from the estimates there. Mr Kay had agreed to a $1.5 million cost-cutting compromise, but almost all his proposals to cut costs or raise revenue were rejected last week, even though a committee agreed to ask council managers to save at least $300,000 this year.