HEAVY PRUNING OF ESTIMATES

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24908, 22 June 1946, Page 6

HEAVY PRUNING OF ESTIMATES

CITY COUNCIL AIMS AT 4p RATE

COMMITTEE’S LONG SITTING Faced with the task of pruning the departmental estimates by £34,000 in order to bring the year’s expenditure within the compass of a general rate of 4ga in the £ on unimproved value, the estimates committee of the Christchurch City Council, which consists of the finance committee with the chairmen of the departmental committees, sat for nearly seven hours yesterday afternoon and evening without reaching finality. The general rate of 43d, which it is expected will eventually be recommended to the council, will represent an increase of 3d on the rate struck in each of the two preceding years Wages increases which are operative over only a part of the last financial year will this time apply f to the whole financial year, and the council also faces heavy expenditure both for new works and for maintenance postponed because of shortage of labour and materials during the war. Ratepayers this year will also have to meet increases in several of the levies made by other local bodies, and for which the City Council acts as “collecting agent.”

. In a brief statement after the meeting, Cr. M. E. Lyons, chairman of the finance committee, said that when the estimates committee adjourned it had arrived at “moderately substantial reductions” in the estimates. It was necessary, he said, to prune £34,000 off the estimates to bring the rate down to 42 d. The work, however, was not completed when the committee rose, and some further adjustments might be possible. These would probably be made at the regular meeting of the finance committee on Tuesday afternoon. The City Council will consider the estimates and strike a rate at its meeting on July 1.