City councillors establish rates rise at 3.8%
● Noted. Great reporting by Eileen Goodwin.
THE FLAVOUR (via ODT)
Cr Hilary Calvert says the city council’s long term plan (LTP) deliberations involved “finding different piles of money under strange places”. The process had turned into a “financial shambles”. She was concerned that the 3% cap on rates increases would be breached in an additional six years of the 10-year plan.
Cr Lee Vandervis opposed the 3% increases, based as they are on a local government cost increase index that’s much higher than the consumer price index. During deliberations he spoke strongly against approving the council’s 2021 debt limit, saying the city’s situation was “terminal” and was stifling Dunedin’s development.
### ODT Online Sat, 23 May 2015
Council sets 3.8% rates rise
By Eileen Goodwin
An accusation of an “ambush” over finances tested tempers as the Dunedin City Council’s long-term plan hearing process concluded yesterday with provisional confirmation of a 3.8% rates rise. Councillors also approved a debt limit of $230 million by 2021, and got through the last individual proposals in the long-term plan.
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THE EDITORIAL
They have to be tough about what a small city can and should manage.
Councillors, and some of them are extremely experienced and have been through such debates for many years, are elected to make tough decisions. This council appears incapable of that discipline.
### ODT Online Sat, 23 May 2015
Cutting the council cloth
OPINION Here we go again. Anyone observing Dunedin City Council debates over the past two decades will be experiencing a sense of deja vu. Pressure goes on for more spending and the councillors crumble. This is the very council that, supposedly, gave itself a rates rise cap for the coming years – well above the inflation rate. […] The cap is being breached, the debt track is stretched and financial discipline is sacrificed to assuage public submissions and for what are often worthy causes.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
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