SBRC Mayor Wayne Kratzmann
South Burnett Mayor Wayne Kratzmann (Photo: SBRC)
April 16, 2014

The South Burnett Regional Council’s attempt to make household budgets easier to manage by introducing quarterly rates is proving hard to wind back.

Quarterly rates were introduced in the 2012-2013 Budget.

At the time, Mayor Wayne Kratzmann said quarterly billing was being introduced to lower the impact half-yearly rates bills were having on household and business budgets.

Councillors also hoped the introduction of smaller, more frequent billing would help reduce the level of rate arrears.

However, today’s Council meeting was told that almost two years of data showed quarterly billing has had little or no effect on arrears. Instead, it has added $250,000 a year to Council’s operating costs.

SBRC Finance Manager Gary Wall said about 86 per cent of ratepayers paid their rates bill on or before the due date to claim their rates discount.

This was about the same percentage that did so when rates notices were issued bi-annually.

Mayor Kratzmann said he was in favour of a return to twice-yearly billing (in February and August) to reduce Council’s costs but some thought would have to be given about how to make the switch.

“At the moment we issue rates notices in August, November, February and May and give a 10 per cent discount if rates notices are paid within 30 days of being issued.” he said.

“But if we swap back to half-yearly notices in next year’s Budget, then our ratepayers will receive a bill for three months’ rates in May, then a bill for six months’ rates in August.

“I don’t think this would go down very well, so we’ll need to look at some way to ease in the changeover.

“But whether this would be by extending the discount period or some other way I don’t know.”

Councillors will now debate how and when to effect a switch back to half-yearly billing in their Budget discussions.


 

4 Responses to "Return To Half-Yearly Rates ‘Difficult’"

  1. So the “lower the impact” was just a “warm and fuzzy” to make us feel good and the real reason was to lower the rate arrears. The council needs a new bean counter.

    To invest $250,000 to recover rates arrears (approx. $300,000 in 2012) seems to be a risky bet and what happened to the 35% decrease in rate arrears as a result of the quarterly bill?

    The following thought was obviously wrong. Spokesperson for Finance, Cr Keith Campbell said ‘Councillors thought long and hard at budget time about the decision to introduce quarterly rate notices.” Maybe someone other than councillors need to do the number crunching, or at least get someone who can.

  2. Why don’t they just bill yearly, with quarterly instalments, with discounting only if you pay everything up front, the same as every other Queensland Council?

    Discounting is not truly discounting, as they still raise the same amount of money, but discounting means those that have the money and pay get the discount, because they can afford to, and those who cannot get slugged additional rates to cover the discount for others.

    How about you just remove it altogether and bill quarterly.

    Running quarterly billing, costs four times more to actually calculate also.

  3. Unfortunately quarterly or half yearly rate billing do not alter the fact rates in the South Burnett are extraordinarily higher in comparison to earnings within the shire. With so many extra charges and fees now in place, extraction by stealth is an appropriate description of council rate policies. What the public requires is financial relief not tactical revolutions of goodwill by council to address public displeasure

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