By Charlene Gatt
CITY of Maribyrnong ratepayers will be slugged an extra six per cent next financial year – and there’s no end in sight with similar rate rises projected over the next five years.
Inflationary pressures and the need for capital works are listed as the prime reasons behind the rise, with the council devoting 2.2 per cent of the increase to the municipality’s annual Sustainability and Infrastructure Fund.
The increase will provide the council with more than $52.5 million in rates charges and follows a succession of similar increases over the past three years.
Since its formation in 1994, Maribyrnong Council has not kept rates at the same rate two years running.
“We’ve been able to keep our rate rises probably in line with other councils,” council finance manager Bryan Stone said.
“If you look at most other councils rate increases this year they’ll be around the six per cent and they won’t have that attempt to address the community infrastructure.”
Neighbouring municipalities have proposed more modest rate rises, with Hobsons Bay Council increasing its rates by 3.9 per cent and Brimbank City Council by 3.92 per cent.
Meanwhile, Maribyrnong Council is set to reap an additional $26 million from ratepayers by the 2013-14 financial year thanks to the council’s five-year long-term financial plan.
Under the plan, which includes an annual six per cent increase plus supplementary rates, the council’s takings will jump from $52.5 million to $78.9 million.
But Maribyrnong’s Sustainable Development general manager John Luppino insists the anticipated rises will not be a “windfall” for the council and said upcoming developments such as the Cedar Woods Estate would create more infrastructure for the council to tend to.
“It’s not a windfall because at the end of the day we inherit the roads, the footpaths, we have to maintain them, we have to provide services, so the rates are basically put back in the community,” he said.
“This perception of windfalls doesn’t exist, and we’re actually out of pocket most of the time.”
In what could be another hit to ratepayers’ hip pockets, the council is conducting a mandatory revaluation of properties in the municipality, which may drive this year’s rate increase considerably higher.
Under the biennial process, the council employs contractors that inspect a percentage of properties in the municipality both physically and through recent sales in the area before revaluing.
The contractors report back to the Auditor-General and residents are notified of the results.
Residents then have the opportunity to object to the revaluation’s findings if they see fit.
“There will be some people through the revaluation that will actually pay less this year then they paid last year,” Mr Luppino said.
“At the end of the day someone’s going to have to pick up the shortfall and it will be those people whose property value is increased.”
Maribyrnong mayor Michelle MacDonald has branded the revaluation a necessary evil.
“As homeowners, we love the see the value of our property go up, we hate to see our rates go up and this is the reality of the rating system,” she said.
“It’s a tax on property, and we don’t particularly approve of the rating system. We think we should get a proportion of the GST and be fully funded as a sector.
“Unfortunately we are made to do evaluations by the State Government – I don’t like it, it’s not redistributed … however, we have to do it and I think that in the environment we’re operating in we do a really good job.”
