Rates

Debt levels will remain higher for longer, but rates increases will be trimmed, if a revised Dunedin City Council budget to be considered next week is accepted.

Dunedin ratepayers face a 3% rates rise for the coming financial year, after a last-minute bid to trim the increase failed yesterday.

Ratepayers across New Zealand - including those in Dunedin - could be left to foot the bill as local government reforms drive up the cost of borrowing for councils, it has been claimed.

The Dunedin City Council will next week adopt its long-term plan, including a rates rise of 4.9% next year, and approve an increase in the city's debt of $59.5 million in 2012-13.

A 4.9% rates increase was confirmed at a Dunedin City Council meeting yesterday.

All of the scrimping, saving and budget-stretching done by the Dunedin City Council in the past week paid off yesterday, as it managed to keep the rates increase for the next financial year at 5%.

Dunedin ratepayers burdened by a decade of hefty rate increases could finally be in for some relief, with the city council's budget heralding a softening of the annual increases in homeowners' pockets.

Tokoiti residents say they are shocked and disappointed with the Clutha District Council's decision to split the cost of new sewerage systems in Benhar and Tokoiti, having 50% funded by the townships and the remainder shared across the district.

Dunedin City Council budgets are again under the microscope, as staff seek to bridge a looming shortfall threatening to push up rates by 11.9% next year.

The average proposed rate increase in the Queenstown Lakes District for 2011-12 would stay under 3%, council finance general manager and deputy chief executive Stewart Burns said yesterday.

Taieri farmers have been left considering their options - a judicial review or going to the ombudsman - after their fight to delay the adoption of a new rating review failed yesterday.

The Waitaki District Council will finalise its 2011-12 budget tomorrow at a meeting which will set the level of any increase in the region's rates for the next financial year.

A Dunedin City Council facing unpopular rates rises, and fresh from election promises of financial prudence, will tomorrow start discussing a staff report that has identified $794,300 of cuts for the next financial year.