Heathcote to pay half costs for spouses?

Press, 12 July 1985, Page 5

Heathcote to pay half costs for spouses?

Most Heathcote County councillors think the council should meet half the cost of their wives and husbands attending conferences with them.

The practice was strongly defended last evening when Cr Fred Chapman told the electricity committee that he did not think the council should pay for spouses of delegates to attend the Electrical Supply Authorities’ Association conference at New Plymouth.

Cr Margaret Buchanan said councillors did “a fine job” and received very little for it.

“If we put our time into going to these conferences, it is basically volunteer work and very hard labour. Our spouses should go along to share the workload,” she said.

Cr Gil Laurenson said paying the expenses of spouses was widely practised by local bodies.

“But I don’t think we should forget that our spouses do a lot indirectly for the county. While we

attend meetings, they have to do things they would not normally have to do,” he said.

It was a tribute to councillors’ spouses if one or two a year could go to a conference and have half the expenses met by the council.

“Some authorities pay full expenses for spouses. I am sure our ratepayers would not object to the council’s meeting half the cost,” said Cr Laurenson.

Cr Chapman said he did not think more than 10 per cent of ratepayers knew of the practice.

“It might be a different story if they did know what was going on,” he said. The County Chairman, Mr Oscar Alpers, said the council had already cut costs by doubling up on committee meetings and cutting councillors’ remuneration. Councillors who took their spouses to conferences still had to meet half the cost, he said. The committee agreed to meet half the cost of send-

ing the spouses of its two delegates to the E.S.S.A. conference. Grant The council will seek more information on the new building for the Canterbury Aged People’s Welfare Council before it considers contributing to the $200,000 public appeal for the project.

The finance committee had been presented a recommendation that it pay $l5O towards the appeal. Mr Alpers said the sum seemed “a measley amount” when compared with the total hoped to be raised by the appeal. He suggested that more information on when the building would be erected and complete be sought by the council. If funding was not needed for another year, the council might be able to consider a $lOOO or $2OOO grant to the appeal by making provision for it in next year’s estimates.

Rates Heathcote ratepayers will face an increase of 8.16 per

cent in rates this year.

A special meeting of the council last evening confirmed the 1985-86 budget, which included the rate rise and an increase in council spending of 13 per cent.

Councillors were told at a meeting on June 19 that the closing of the county’s Truscotts Road dump was the reason for the increase.

In the 1984-85 financial year $135,282 was collected in tip fees from the dump. The estimate for this year is only $27,000. This means that $132,141 will have to be transferred from the general county account to balance the rubbish account this year, compared with only $55,709 last year.

The County Clerk, Mr Pat Cooney, said that the difference between the rate increase (8.16 per cent) and council spending (13 per cent) would be found from credit held and the increase in the number of ratepayers in the county.