Press Release - Council Confirms Rate Rise 5.9% for 2022/2023

Press Release

Council Confirms Rate Rise 5.9% for 2022/2023

Last night Council discussed the Annual Plan for the 2022/2023 year.

Council has worked hard to deliver services amongst escalating costs due to the impact COVID is having on supply chains and the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data.

Council is affected by these increasing costs and to maintain agreed levels of service we will have to find the money to cover those increases. A challenge for the Council is balancing the impact of rates increases on the community with the ongoing delivery of Council services, many which have been promised in the LTP.

We were committed to keeping the increase as low as possible. The Council and staff are very mindful of the impacts of cost increases on communities and appreciate that the current rate of inflation is affecting affordability.

Mayor Gibson said “there are no significant changes to the annual plan, the team have worked hard to get us to this point. There has been an extensive budget review with inflation at its highest for over 30 years and more rising costs in our capital projects, I commend our executive leadership team for working hard through every avenue to keep our rates increase under our cap. We know that there will be financial pressures in the future”. She said.

“The recent weather events this year highlight just how important it is that the Council continues to improve infrastructure and has effective maintenance programmes that meet the needs of our community. Residents have made it very clear to us that they would like better roads and footpaths, that they want to see improvements to the attractiveness of the town centre and that they want us to improve stormwater infrastructure amongst other things. We are committed to completing the work and it is our intention to deliver these projects.” Mayor Gibson said

Contact:

Grey District Council

Phone 03 769 8600