HOSPITAL LEVY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 149, 25 June 1943, Page 4

HOSPITAL LEVY

CITY COUNCIL'S PUN

BOARD WILL NOT ACCEDE The Wellington Hospital Board last night rejected, unanimously, the proposal made by the City Council that an unconstitutional course should be taken in connection with the hospital levy for the current year. The City Council notified the board that it had adopted a resolution asking' the board to forward its claim for pay- ! ment of hospital levies to the Controller of the Social Security Fund; i that all local bodies be invited by the council to take up a similar stand in order to be relieved of a double system of taxation which was considered in- j equitable and unjust; and that the | council strike a rate of 1 691-800 d fori hospital purposes, but that no payment actually be made to the Hospital Board except pursuant to a resolution of the council. The chairman, Mr. F. Castle, moved that the letter should be received, and this was carried. He then moved that the board was not prepared to accede to the suggestion of the City Council. The board, he said, was acting under statutory powers that were positive and clearly stated. The law stated that any amount levied by the board upon the local authority was a debt recoverable in a court of law. What was proposed was outside the law and he was surprised at a body like the Wellington City Council adopting such a course. When the statutes were amended in the proper way the Hospital Board would act as the new law directed, but it could not follow an unconstitutional procedure to try to force a position that was not curable by the board. No matter what members might think about it, the board had no power to act other than in the lawful procedure, said Mr. H. F. Toogood. The duty of the board was to administer the hospital under the law and he hoped that the argument about the law would be removed entirely from the board table, which was not the place to make or amend the law. Mrs. Knox Gilmer: I think the City Council expected just that answer. The move was made to satisfy one man; that is all.