Deputy Mayor: No more financial fat left to trim
“We’ve got to a point where if we cut any further, we would be cutting muscle and bone, rather than fat."
Deputy Mayor Tom Campbell stresses there’s no more fat to cut at the Invercargill City Council without hitting “muscle or bone” in an attempt to keep rates down.
The council revealed this week that a 5.5% rates increase is likely for Invercargill ratepayers after last year it was forecast to be 5.05%.
However, on the back of inflation, minimum wage rises, and other cost increases Mayor Nobby Clark said at one point they were facing a 20% to 24% increase.
At a council meeting on Tuesday Deputy Mayor Campbell felt the council could not cut any further than the 5.5% increase they have got to.
“I think at a time when we know citizens are struggling, when inflation goes over 7% and everything seems to be becoming more and more expensive, particularly things like food, one of the issues we had this year is to try and keep rates down to the absolute minimum.
“As a consequence of that, I think we’ve cut fat where we could. We have made decisions where ideally; we would have spent the money.
“But this is not the year where we can take even more money from ratepayers than we may otherwise do.
“We’ve got to a point where if we cut any further, we would be cutting muscle and bone, rather than fat.
“It’s a pity that we’ve ended up higher than where we would have liked but it’s still an awful lot [better] than what it might have been.
“I think we’ve probably landed at a place where it’s as good as we are going to get to.”
The rates rise would mean an average increase of $145, or $2.78 per week, for residential ratepayers.
Speaking away from Tuesday’s meeting Clark told The Tribune that residents will probably notice some reduced services because of that quest to keep rates down.
There may be some public pushback, but Clark said the other option was a much larger rate rise.
“The public are very quick to criticise high rates. Every politician at every election says I’m going to keep a lid on rates, but very few of them actually deliver that.
“Invercargill has been very frugal in recent times and will continue to be so.”
He used the reduction in the mowing of council reserves as one example, and not opening as early at the weekend at the Splash Palace Pool as another.
“They are looking at the libraries, they’ve cut back the hours on the ground floor of our reception area, Park and Reserves, and looked at lots of different options.
“Each manager was charged with coming back with some reasonably significant cuts. We just can’t afford it, families are no different as the face the cost of living they make choices about whether they eat out. We don’t have any other choice.”
Clark said the staff has worked had to make the required savings.
“When I came into the palace as it were, I said; ‘20 to 24% is just unacceptable, we need to make some cuts. If you can’t make cuts, then governance will’.”
He added that to the staff’s credit, and they went away and sorted it.
Clark said councils throughout New Zealand were struggling to keep rate rises down as inflationary pressures hit.
He said at a recent Local Government meeting in Wellington there was a “straw poll” gauging where rate rises were at, and Invercargill’s 5.5% was in the bottom bracket between 4 to 6%.