SALARIES REDUCED

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 68, 21 March 1931, Page 13

SALARIES REDUCED

HUTT COUNCIL'S DECISION

RATES TOO HIGH

After serious consideration tho Hutt 'County Council has decided to reduco 'tho salaries of its administrative ofticeis by 10 per ceiil., and to cancel the increase of Is a day granted to its other employees in 1029. Tho council lias asked those officers and employees I to. bear in mind the excessive rates which tho county ratepayers had long endured —rates which were excessive from no fault of tho council or its employees, but from the fact that an unroasonablo burden was placed upon the county by foreign tntths, colossal rating exemptions, and other disabilities arising from the county's propinquity to a largo centre of population and from its lugged nature. "Tho fall in the prices of farm produce has made these excessive rates now quite unendurable," said the chairman, Mr. D. R. Hoggard. "I have examined somo typical cases of sheep farmcis in the county whose rates tins year absorb half, and more of the wool cheque. Relief must be given to these peoplo fi'om their heavy burdens. Making due allowance for alterations which have taken place in the area of the county and for changes made in tho collection of the hospital and chantablo aid rate, I find that we now collect by way of general rates £3 10s for every £1 we collected in w}*-*-*) and by way of hospital and charitable aid rates £4 10 for every £1 we collected in 1013-14. During tho interim our roadmen's wages have been increased from Ss Gd a day to 14s. It is obvious that the increase in rates is not wholly or mainly due to the increase >m wages, but the increase of wages has been a material factor, and the recent decision to make some reduction in wages will enable a small, though very smlll measure of relief to be given to the ratepayers."