The local council with the lowest average residential rates was \u014ctorohanga district at $2554.<\/p>\n
This is the first time the Whakat\u0101ne council has had this figure included in the report since it was listed as the third highest in New Zealand in 2021. Since then, the Whakat\u0101ne council has not provided the organisation with the figures required to provide this comparison until now.<\/p>\n
The report is looked upon unfavourably by many councils, which consider the information lacking in context about varying needs of different districts and services provided.<\/p>\n
Tanczos said the report was \u201ca classic example of comparing blueberries with melons\u201d. <\/p>\n
Whakat\u0101ne Mayor Nandor Tanczos. Photo \/ LDR<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re both fruit but what you get from eating one is very different. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe way councils charge for services varies a lot \u2013 some have very high fees to help lower the rates, some don\u2019t provide certain services like rubbish collection, some use a lot of targeted rates, and some hit certain ratepayers harder than others, which \u2018average rates\u2019 don\u2019t reflect. <\/p>\n
\u201cI get what they\u2019re trying to do but the shonky methodology makes this a \u2018not achieved\u2019. There\u2019s no participation prize in politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said if people were really interested in the council\u2019s services and costs they could view its annual report, which was available on its website.<\/p>\n
Kawerau district, while being among the dozen local councils with lowest residential rates, at $3130, had the second highest average non-residential rates in the country at $46,352.<\/p>\n
Kawerau District Council chief executive Morgan Godfery said this was because of the large capital values of industrial properties in the district.<\/p>\n
Kawerau District Council chief executive Morgan Godfery. Photo \/ LDR<\/p>\n
\u201cKawerau\u2019s non-residential properties comprise a number of large industrial properties which have significant capital values and therefore higher rates, which consequently impacts the average rates for the non-residential properties.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the median valued non-residential property was used for this calculation the rates would be $10,230.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kawerau District Council has been criticised by the Taxpayers\u2019 Union, which felt the council\u2019s staff cost statistics raised serious concerns around efficiency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith staffing costs reaching $2567 per household, 28 fulltime staff per 1000 households, and nearly a third of staff in management or communications roles, ratepayers are right to question whether they\u2019re getting value for money,\u201d a media release said.<\/p>\n
Godfery said that while the figures gave readers an indication of the average figures for the individual councils, they didn\u2019t compare the services.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Kawerau we provide a high level of council services to all properties, which includes water, wastewater, rubbish and recycling collection, mowing of berms, provision of dog services 24\/7, facilities and venues, roading and footpaths, infrastructure investment and the many other services and activities.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u014cp\u014dtiki district\u2019s average residential rates were $3163, comparable with Kawerau district\u2019s $3130, and 13th lowest of the local councils.<\/p>\n
Its non-residential rates were the fourth lowest in the country among local councils, at $3606.<\/p>\n
This year, six of New Zealand\u2019s 77 councils either did not respond or refused or were not able to provide figures for the report.<\/p>\n
\u2013 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The local council with the lowest average residential rates was \u014ctorohanga district at $2554. This is the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[806,1359,7557,38402,14739,15980,71,4729,10934,3025,58136,111,43,139,69,6744,7676,10465,1560,46803,221741,19993,221742,1361,3755,61,2240,2963],"class_list":["post-433050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-as","tag-described","tag-district","tag-drop","tag-expensive","tag-fallen","tag-from","tag-highest","tag-mayor","tag-most","tag-nandor","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-place","tag-rates","tag-ratings","tag-report","tag-seventh","tag-shonky","tag-slams","tag-tanczos","tag-that","tag-third","tag-to","tag-whakatne","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}