RATES AND ESTIMATES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 7, 9 July 1923, Page 8

RATES AND ESTIMATES

CONSIDERATION BY COUNCIL

TO-NIGHT.

Citycouncillors at the adjourned meeting this- evening will give consideration to the important questions of estimates and rates for the ensuing year. The financial year will be a heavy one, for the reason that the council will have to meet interest and sinking fund outgoings on the Antecedent Liability Loan, £340,000, the Unemployed Relief Loan of £12,000. and other loans authorised in the 1920 schedule, and which were raised last year, so that the council is meeting thpse charges for the first time this year. The special ■ water . rate will also bo considered, and it is probable that this rate, which now stands at 2£ per cent, on the annual value, will be increased. The present rate, by the way, is probably as low as that holding in any other town, in the Dominion,' and according to statute may be as high as 6 per cent, on annual value. In this respect also the council has to make provision for heavy outgoings, since interest and sinking funds must be provided in respect of the heavy expenditure incurred in the pushing on' of the present big water schemes, which, until completed and connected up with the new reticulations, to Karori and Onslow, bring in no return. The aim ,of the council is to complete those reticulation systems conjointly with the completion of the new main pipe line in order that revenue may then be brought in at once. '