Support team offer a Clayton's rates relief says councillor

By WAYNE THOMPSON

The Auckland Regional Council plans to form a "ratepayer support team" which will make house calls to people who say they cannot pay their rates on time.

The council adopted the idea yesterday after an urgent review of its controversial rating system, which has sparked a rates revolt.

It was accepted over other suggestions from stressed staff and councillors, such as allowing payment to be spread by instalments and delaying rates-penalty deadlines.

Council rates project leader Nigel Bernie said a team of about seven would meet the ratepayers, discuss payment options, help fill in the right forms for rates relief and advise them on whether the ARC deemed them eligible for a special arrangement.

The aim would be to give people an answer within 48 hours of applying for relief, said Mr Bernie.

Applications would be looked after in "a proactive, customer-friendly manner".

But councillor Sandra Coney described the team as a "misuse of $250,000 of ratepayers' money".

Sending staff to people's homes to discuss ways of paying rates would have the ARC stepping into the territory of social workers, she said.

The idea was a "Clayton's rates relief" and chosen ahead of her suggestions, which would have given those on fixed incomes rights to seek relief while keeping their dignity.

Instead of having to plead a case for relief, Ms Coney said, people should be able to arrange to spread payments by instalment billing - as they could for local council rates.

But the council was firmly sticking to its offer of allowing payment to be spread only by direct debit in regular amounts over 10 months.

Ms Coney said the council should also delay by one or two months the dates when 10 per cent penalties kicked in.

She believed about 80,000 ratepayers were likely to miss the payment deadline.

Rodney, Waitakere, North Shore, Manukau, Franklin and Papakura rates were due. Some parts of Auckland City were due next Monday and others on September 15.

The ARC said it did not have figures for how many of the 450,000 rates demands were earning penalties. But it said that as of Monday, 58 per cent, or 199,316 rates bills, had been paid and $46,533,257 was still to be collected.

The council spent a fraction of its 40-minute monthly meeting yesterday discussing rates in front of an empty public gallery.

Its rating committee held a special meeting last Thursday to consider Mr Bernie's report. This followed an extraordinary meeting on August 13 when the council threw out a call to reset the rates but agreed to review penalty dates and paying by instalment.

Staff were instructed to recommend a procedure that would "ensure people experiencing genuine hardship [were] readily able to access the relief available".

Mr Bernie reported that the council had taken significant criticism of the impact of rates on people who were on fixed or low incomes but who lived in properties with a high capital value.

But he said the average rate for the year for ARC ratepayers was $260 including GST - less than the smallest average instalment payable by ratepayers in the region.

He said ARC policy already allowed payments to be postponed and for senior officers to agree to alternative payment arrangements with ratepayers in arrears and struggling to make payments.

The rating committee also had power to decide not to collect small amounts if it were uneconomic.

Mr Bernie said the support team's costs of about $250,000 could come from rates penalty income.

Legal advice ruled against another idea of setting up a "hardship fund" to pay half the rates above a certain value for ratepayers on low incomes or who were unwilling to seek rates postponement.

Mr Bernie said all councils applied a penalty for late payment and the ARC was able to remit penalties for circumstances beyond a ratepayer's control, such as sickness, death in the family and failure of the payment cheque to arrive in the mail.

He said instalment rating could not be introduced in this financial year because it was not provided for in the current rates resolution.

It was not possible for the council to accept 10 monthly payments by cheque instead of prearranged direct debit and accepting staggered payments by other means would cost $5 per instalment for each ratepayer.

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