LEVIES ONE PER CENT. MORE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 98, 28 April 1939, Page 8

LEVIES ONE PER CENT. MORE

SALARIES AND WAGES INCREASED UNDER MANY AWARDS IMPOSSIBLE TO ANTICIPATE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT’S EFFECT Estimates were adopted by the Wanganui Hospital Board yesterday. A sum of £34,223 will be levied on local bodies, compared with £30,925 last year, an increase of £3269. By far the largest sum the board has to find is for salaries and wages, which require £22.563 out of a total of £43,410 spent on the Wanganui Hospital alone. Operation of 11 different industrial awards has resulted in many increases in rates of pay. The board also anticipates that, before the end of the year, there will be an industrial agreement covering sisters and nurses. Capital estimates were adopted by the Board a month ago. They provide for a total expenditure of £44.270, which includes £20,000 for a new hospital at Baetihi, alterations and extensions to the existing building there, £9OOO on laudnry and workshops at Wanganui, and £4250 for a new nurses' home on Heads Boad. A sum of £33,250 of the capital expenditure is to be raised' by way of loan, £4859 by way of levy on local bodies (included in the maintenance estimates passed yesterday ', and £4859 by State subsidy. Unable to anticipate in any way the probable effect of the full operation of the Social Security Act in respect to free hospital treatment and wider maternity benefits, the board has framed its estimates as though the Act was not coming into force. Adjustments, and important ones, may have to be made before the end of the financial year if the Act does become operative. It is anticipated that collection of patients’ fees will fall considerably, and that increased expenditure will be needed at the Jessie Hope Gibbons .Maternity Home. Against increases likely in the directions referred to, a decrease in the amount expended on charitable aid has been decided on. The fuller pensions now in operation influenced the board to reduce this expenditure by £1359. “When the estimates of some other hospital boards are taken into consideration, it will be realised that those framed at Wanganui are conservative.” said the chairman of the board (Mr. W. E. Broderick). He said that they were only one per eent. higher than last year. In other centres the increase had been as much as 65 per eent. The estimates were submitted to the board in very comprehensive form, the clarity with which the accounts were explained by the managing secretary (.Mr. 1.. V. Kerby), and the accountant (Mr. L. Fitzsimons i resulting in a motion expressing the board’s appreciation. Mr. A. J. B. Sicily Marton), who is an aeeountant, spoke very emphatically on the work done, particularly that of .Mr. Fitzsimons.