Well the budget is set.

My General Rate has increased over 40%. The Annual Assessed value increased by close to 70%.

Have a look at the graph. Over 50% of rateable properties saw either a decrease in their General Rate or an increase up to 5%. The rest have seen higher increases (including me). This is the first valuation in 5 years for my property and Valuer General’s department feel my place has increased dramatically in value.

The Annual Accessed Value (AAV) is what Council uses to work out your rates. This is either 4% of the capital value of your property or the rent you could reasonably assume to receive through renting your property for 12 months.

Your rates are not directly related to the services you receive. Some people argue that they don’t use the streetscape so they shouldn’t have to pay for it. Well I could argue that I do not use the bridge near their home but I still pay for it. We all subsidize each other. Everybody’s General Rates are put into a central fund and then distributed to different departments such as Parks and Gardens, Youth, Tourism and Bridge Maintenance.

A few facts and figures:

- Our new waste disposal contract will increase by $88.000
- Council is budgeting for a $70,000 surplus, Council’s is determined to run surplus budgets each year.
- Rate revenue is forecast to be $3,395,577
- Council has dropped $1.28 million in loans (due to water and sewerage offload)
- Council has picked up a $1 million loan for streetscapes. Share the burden with future ratepayers.
- Predicted cash reserves are $1.35 million
- Council to spend $1.1 million on a new road into Lorinna
- Average Annual Assessed Value of properties in Kentish is $10,687.52

Sean Ford recently said of Kentish Rates in a recent Advocate article “KENTISH ($1084.84): Used to charge so little it was unsustainable, but that has clearly changed. Lots of rural roads and bridges and a low population. Probably acceptable, but would not want to go any higher compared to the cities and looks a bit
next to Circular Head”

Sean gets much of this right. When I arrived in Kentish in the 90s I remember a Councillor at the time telling me the rates were the cheapest in Tasmania. He failed to me the infrastructure was crumbling around our ears. Kentish has a history of not putting aside enough cash to maintain our infrastructure. Since the Council went belly up this has gradually changed. Our rates are no longer the cheapest in the land.

Sean mentions the roads and bridges. Spot on. Over 100 bridges. Yes beautiful mountains but they create so many bridges. Council has determined that we need to put away close to $0.5 million every year just for bridges. We have a much larger road network than Latrobe and a much more difficult one to maintain due to the windy and mountainous terrain it winds through. Slower going to maintain than flat land. Full marks to our Works Manager Ron Aitken. He does a good job. So we have lots of infrastructure.

Sean Ford mentions our low population. Spot on again. The less ratepayers you have the higher burden each one carries with rates. To be more specific it is “rateable properties” that matter. We have approximately 3636 rateable properties. We could do with more. Some people say they don’t want any more subdivisions. OK well this has consequences. The more rateable properties the less individual burden each ratepayer needs to carry.

Now Sean says” looks a bit next to Circular Head”.

Kentish Rateable Properties 3636
Circular Head Rateable Properties 4690

So Circular Head has around 1000 more rateable properties. That is significant. More properties to share the burden.

Kentish Council Bridges 106
Circular Head Bridges 101

So Kentish has more bridges to maintain with less rateable properties.

This all said. I am convinced there is waste in Kentish Council that needs to be targeted and eliminated.  I think we need to run a broom through the organization and cut our operating costs so we can keep a lid on our rates.

Our rates have gone up. They needed to. Now is the time to look at ways to cut expenditure to put downward pressure on rate rises.

1. mcdonalds coupon Says:
   September 14th, 2009 at 12:50 pm

   Thanks much for this good post.

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