The Dom Post reports on a "budget blowout" today after Council signed off its budget yesterday.
The rates target was 2.5%, we signed it off at 2.75%.
A couple of things to note: firstly, the increase was due to great initiatives like making Wellington a Living Wage city, an investment in Orchestra Wellington (we lag behind other cities in terms of supporting our local orchestra), extra money to implement our Cycling Policy and investment in a new urban development project which will promote growth in the city. So a small increase for some really high value projects.
Other thing to note is that our rates increases are below other cities like Hamilton, Auckland, Chrsitchurch and so on. So we are not doing too badly.
Whilst we need to contain costs, we do need to remember that rates are still a relatively small part of a person's budget compared to things like food, childcare, mortgages and so on.
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