CITY’S FINANCES

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 260, 29 July 1932, Page 7

CITY’S FINANCES

The Mayor’s Statement ASSOCIATION’S REPLY “No Gross Inaccuracies” In replying to a statement of the I Civic League dealing with the financial I affairs of the city, and more particularly with the per capita rate burden I here as compared with that of other cities, the Wellington Ratepayers’ Association used certain figures which induced the Mayor, Mr. T. C. A. Hislop, to state that the “gross inaccuracies” included in the statement were likely to Impair the city’s good name. The Mayor produced another set of figures in support of his ease. To this the association replied yesterday: “The Mayor does not question the association’s statement that the debt of the city increased from £2,162,345 in 1920 to £5,627,918 in 1932 —an increase of £3,465,573 in twelve years,” says the Ratepayers’ Association’s statement. "He only says that in 1920, £1,708,916 was ‘voted’ by the ratepayers. Meaning, evidently, that the ratepayers must take a large share of the blame for the tremendous increase of between three and four millions in the city debt since 1920. Our statement still stands that . the greater amount of the increase was raised by 'special order’ without the sanction of the ratepayers whose properties are pledged as security.

“The 1920 loan was granted for a period of five years, and the City Council when the ratepayers’ sanction to the loan was about to lapse took steps to renew a large portion of the loan for another ten years without asking the ratepayers for their approval. Thousands of that same loan (so extended by the council without ratepayers’ sanction) have not been raised, so the whole of it cannot yet.be included as the Mayor implies in the total debt of £5,627,918. That disposes of ’gross inaccuracy’ No. 1, and puts the Mayor’s assertion in another light.

Rates and Reserves. “The association’s review of twelve years showed that the rates had inI creased from £208,362 in 1920 to £508,403 in 1932. But, says the Mayor, I Miramar and Karori were not included I in the city in 1920, and that the rates for that year for these suburbs should be added—about £22,000. Whether they were added in or not the Town Clerk I gives the rates in 1920 as £205,362, and those for 1932 as £508,403, an increase I in twelve years of over £300,000, equal to an added debt of 5 per cent, of I £6,000,000. So much for ‘gross inacI curacy’ No. 2. . ’ • “The Mayor does not challenge the I fact that the figures for the doubling of the cost of reserves were taken from I the same source as ‘salaries,’. which were £ll,OOO in 1,920 and £38,000 in 11932, and street works (or Works Committee) £50,000 in 1920 and £104,000 in 1932—namely, the advertised estimates for the current year. The association would like to know from the Mayor what items in detail make up the dif- | ference between £104,000 (in the estimates) and the £40,000 to be spent this year on ‘street works’ by the Works Committee, to whom the larger sum was allotted. The Mayor’s assertion does not alter the facts. So much for ‘gross inaccuracy’ No. 3.

I “Heavier than Auckland.” I "The Mayor says the rateable properties jn Auckland average £644, and in Wellington £BBO unimproved value, and that to take these for comparison ‘is sure to be misleading,’ " the statement proceeds. “The Government Statistician does not find it so, and the Ratepayers’ Association on further examintion’ of this point finds that the rate burden of Wellington ratepayers is individually much heavier than in Auckland, for in Auckland there are 26,212 property assessments as compared with 25,625 in Wellington. With a higher : individual assessment, as the Mayor states, averaging £BBO in Wellington and £644 in Auckland, and 587 more in Auckland to carry the rates levied, it is proved on the Mayor’s own showing that the rate burden is much heavier in Wellington than in Auckland. On a rate levy of 6d in the £1 the average ratepayer in Auckland pays £l6/2/-, while the average ratepayer in Wellington pays £22. “The Ratepayers’ Association thanks the Mayor for supplying these figures for its examination; and in disposing thus of ‘gross inaccuracy’ No. 4 the association would again remind the City Council that Auckland has reduced its Wites for this year and Wellington has not, and that is what induced the association to the conclusion that the utmost has not been done by the, City Council to relieve the ratepayers of Wellington of their intolerable burdens.

“The Mayor considers that ‘actually the percentage of administrative cost for Wellington is lower than for other centres.’ The Government Statistician has found from the figures supplied to him by the authorities of the four centres that ‘the percentage of salaries paid to revenue received’ in Wellington is from 16 to 24 per cent, greater than in the other cities mentioned. The Mayor has, not disproved the Statistician’s finding, and that disposes of ‘gross inaccuracy’ No. 5.

Value of Work Done. “In another place attention has been directed to the statement made by the association in its twelve years’ review of city affairs that in the years 1927-28-29 ratepayers sanctioned loans amounting to £214,075, and that in the same three years the City Council, by special order and without the sanction of the ratepayers, floated loans amounting' to £680,500, and the association asked: ‘What necessary works showing good value for the. money expended can be mentioned in the first and third items (unemployment and street widening) totalling nearly half a million of money?’ Some criticism is offered but the question is not answered. “During all these years the City Council has by legislation peculiar to itself ’and in contravention of law applicable to all other local bodies the Dominion, contracted itself out of the obligations and duties it owes to ratepayers and has deprived them by such legislation of the power to control the city’s borrowing and spending large sums that will be an intolerable burden upon them -for many years to come.”