October 17, 2013
South Burnett residents appear to have turned their backs on a “road levy revolt” and decided that getting a discount on their rates payments is a better option.
Finance Portfolio chairman Cr Keith Campbell told Wednesday’s SBRC council meeting that barely 40 of the region’s almost 17,000 ratepayers had refused to pay the Road Levy up to September 30.
“The latest figures we have available show that 85 per cent of ratepayers paid their rates in full by the discount date, and in the following two weeks a further six per cent paid their bill.
“The level of outstanding rates at this point in time is pretty close to normal,” he said.
Cr Campbell warned that discounts were only available when a ratepayer paid their rates in full by the discount date and had no other amounts outstanding on their account.
“This means that if someone witholds paying the Road Levy, they will not be able to get a discount even if they pay all the rest of their rates bill on or before the discount date,” he said.
“The discount is usually a lot more than the $25 or $50 per quarter the levy involves.”
Cr Campbell noted that quarterly rates notices do not appear to have had any significant impact on the level of rate arrears.
“Quarterly rates payments have been very well received in some quarters and not as well received in others,” he said.
“This might be something we should look at in the future.”
Barring major shocks any variations are likely to be minor.
“Recent comments in some quarters that Council is financially irresponsible are way off the mark,” he said.
“If the people making those comments knew of all the checks and balances in the system I think they’d be surprised.”
[CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report stated “such as last year’s sudden loss of more than $1.4 million in State Government grants”. southburnett.com.au wants to make clear that Cr Campbell did not say this. This was inserted during the editing process.]
