Waverley Council hikes rates
Waverley Mayor Sally Betts said she did not want to request additional rates rises beyond the 46 per cent increase approved by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) last week.
Waverley Council was granted permission to increase its rates by 14.5 per cent next financial year, 13.5 per cent in 2012-13 and 12.5 per cent in 2013/14.
This was less than half of the 91 per cent rise over seven years requested by the council.
Ms Betts, who claimed last October that the council needed an extra $125 million in funding to survive the next 12 years, said she was happy with IPART’s compromise.
She said the council would have to work hard to save money because she did not want to return to IPART to ask for more rates increases.
Waverley Council’s 14.5 per cent hike was the largest of those approved by IPART chairman Rod Sims, who recently took over the responsibility from the State Local Government Department.
The increase will translate into an extra $109 per year for the average ratepayer in the next financial year.
Mr Sims said councils had been required to prove their supported increases had wide community support before approval.
He said such evidence included statistically valid surveys.
While councils are now allowed to apply for rate increases spanning up to seven years, Mr Sims said Waverley Council’s rises were so high that community support needed to be re-evaluated once they kicked in.
“Waverley Council’s application sought the largest cumulative increase in general income of all the 23 applications we received,” Mr Sims said.
Some residents have already expressed anger the council intends using part of its capital expenditure budget to install parking meters.
However, Ms Betts said on an online forum the meters would not be funded by rates, but “rather by the sale of poorer performing assets and parking fees”.
The council has blamed its decline in revenue on diminishing returns from parking fines as motorists become more law abiding.
Ms Betts said last year rates revenue should grow to fund 50 per cent of services, to increase the council’s financial stability.
