EDITORIAL: Government budgets come and go, but as far as local councils are concerned, ratepayers get a stark reminder about our councillors’ ability to balance the books whenever the rates bill comes in the post.
That’s when decisions made, often months before, see us forking out more of our hard-earned dollars every quarter.
Rates never seem to go down, but sometimes their increase does slow.
This financial year, Logan City Council rates will go up by around 1.7 per cent. Taking into account discounts offered, that’s one of the lowest increases in the country.
The money goes to the common good, but how high can rates realistically go before ratepayers simply cannot afford to pay?
In the lead up to this week’s Logan City Council budget, this writer was approached by a ratepayer at a Logan City hairdresser, whose rates bill is over $900 every quarter and now set to rise.
She doesn’t want to pass on the extra costs to customers, but it’s getting to the point when she feels she’ll have no choice.
While being interviewed for another article (see page six), another local ratepayer said he’d consider staying in the region where his family has lived for 150 years, as long as the council keeps the rates at a “sensible” level.
While rates hover below the $1000-a-quarter mark, they feel sensible, in the same way that $9.99 seems better than $10.10.
According to Logan City treasurer councillor Trevina Schwarz, the moderate rise in Logan City rates came about due to the council’s ability to save costs on interest payments, after $36 million was repaid to the Queensland Treasury Corporation.
But councils love to break budgets down into palatable sound bytes, and this year, Logan Council’s mantra is that we’ll pay an extra 84 cents a week.
That’s not a lot, so why does it feel as though it’s never going to be enough?
