Community Panel – SE Drains If the Panel decides to recommend any form of drainage levy then firstly the current Natural Resources Management (NRM) levy needs to be restructured. A further levy imposed on city and township ratepayers will be totally unacceptable while the inequitable NRM levy remains in place.
Community Panel – SE Drains The SE NRM Board has chosen to base its levy collection on a fixed charge on all rateable land units. Farm properties consisting of more than one assessment can apply to pay only one levy amount per business. City and township ratepayers cannot apply for levy relief on multiple blocks owned by a single individual or business. Currently the levy is $41 per unit per year or approx. $1.62M collected for 2015/2016.
Community Panel – SE Drains See printed notes for calculations using combined data from Tatiara and Kingston District Councils. It can be seen there is a cross subsidy of approx. $73500 from urban ratepayers to rural ratepayers, or about 40%. This figure would be much higher in relation to the City of Mount Gambier.
Community Panel – SE Drains Of the $1.62M collected, this sum covers budgeted expenditure on Pest management, Protecting groundwater, Water accounting, Land management advice and Regional landcare. These functions are predominately farm focussed. Expressed another way, the city and township ratepayers are heavily cross subsidising the essential Investigation and Compliance activities mandated by the NRM Act and carried out by the Authorised Officers in relation to rural lands .
Community Panel – SE Drains An Alternative Approach Other NRM Boards use the Value of Rateable Land as the basis of their levies eg Adelaide and Mt Lofty Ranges, Northern and Yorke Peninsula and SA Murray Darling. It is proposed this method be investigated as a means to a fairer proportioning between urban and rural ratepayers in the South East. This would be a critical first step before any other NRM type levy ie Drainage be imposed within the South East region.
Community Panel – SE Drains The issues before the Panel This submission proposes that if any community levy is recommended to the Minister then it be based on Beneficiary pays principles. Your Information Kit refers to Cost:Benefit studies into the drainage schemes (both Lower SE and Upper SE) showing private landholders receiving benefits in the range of 88 to 94 percent and thus public benefits ranging 6 to 12 percent. These figures seem a reasonable starting point.
Community Panel – SE Drains The real difficulty will be determining who are the true private beneficiaries. Previous attempts to establish levy zones with lines drawn on maps have been met with hostility and conflict. However the really big elephant in the room is the huge expense flagged by the Drainage Board in relation to maintenance and replacement of road bridges. This should clearly be the responsibility of the State government. After all how often do south easterners use the Southern Expressway or will use the redeveloped South Road tunnels and bridges?
Community Panel – SE Drains Summary 1. Restructure the current NRM levy first. 2. Any new Drainage levy be based on Beneficiary pays principles. 3. The Public benefit portion be funded by the State government as an increased budget allocation to the SEWCDB. 4. The State government assume responsibility for maintaining or replacing transport infrastructure assets (and not just dump it on Local government).
Community Panel – SE Drains
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