HOSPITAL LEVIES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3809, 23 June 1928, Page 2

HOSPITAL LEVIES

* STATEMENT BY FA EMEUS’ UNION.

Wellington, June 21. For many years the ratepayers in rural areas have complhined about the inequitable alloeatiin of hospital levies between urban and rural areas in a hospital district, says a statement on the position issued by the New Zealand Farmers’ Union.

A hospital board has no power to strike a rate itself but makes a levy upon the contributing' local authorities for its requirements based upon the rateable capital value of each ratepayer’s property. The rateable capital value of rural areas is £332,120,000, whereas that of urban areas is £233,183,000, so that the rural areas are heavily penalised when one considers that only 41 per cent, of the Dominion’s population resides in the country. The total hospital levies for 1927-28 throughout the Dominion was £625,919. Out of this amount the rural ratepayers paid £307,735, and town and city ratepayers £258,184.

In other words the rural ratepayers of tlie Dominion paid 59 per cent, of the total hospital levies, whereas the c-ity and town dwellers, who make much use of the hospitals, paid 41 per cent. The population of counties is 514,524, or 41 per cent, of the population, whereas the number of town dwellers is 822,042 or 58 per cent, of the total. If the hospital levies were paid on a population basis only then the rural districts with a rate of 0.17-Id on rateable capital value, would have to pay £210,954, and city dwellers at a rate of 0.390 d on rateable capital value would have to pay £384,905. If the hospital levies were based on population the country districts would have to pay £120,781 less per annum. If the total levies of £02!),919 were allocated on a fifty-fifty basis, population and capital value, it has been calculated that the rural share would be £304,344, and that of the cities and towns £321,574. In other words, the country ratepayers would pay £48.0 per cent, of the levies, and the city ratepayers 51.4 per cent., a result much more equitable than at present-.