Invercargill City Council chief executive Clare Hadley will forgo $30,000 from her salary over the next six months, as a contribution to the community.

Ms Hadley has previously refrained from publicly discussing her pay as she felt it is a personal matter. However, at a Committee of Council meeting held yesterday heard Ms Hadley had offered to donate $30,000 of her salary back to the council over the next six months. The committee thanks Ms Hadley for her gesture and decided the money would be retained towards enable the council to waive resource and building consent fees associated with the Southland Charity Hospital.

The other big item at yesterday’s meeting was the adoption of the revised Rates Postponement and Remissions Policy. 

The policy was drafted following the COVID-19 outbreak and includes a new scheme to provide support for both residential and commercial ratepayers experiencing financial hardship as a result of a pandemic or natural disaster.

Consultation was undertaken between the 4th and 29th of May. 

During the consultation process, the rates officer received approximately 25 inquiries about rates postponement and arranged reduced direct debits with no penalty for several customers, in line with the council’s existing policy. 

The revised policy allows for only a postponement of rates, and all rates owed will need to be paid back in the future. The original proposal was for the postponed rates interest rate to be 3.5% but this was reduced to 2.5% as a result of the submissions received.

Councillor Toni Biddle asked if there was any way council would consider wiping rates completely for ratepayers who were struggling, however interim Group Manager for Finance Services Dave Foster said the hurdles to qualify for this were “always set very high”.

Approximately 23 people had responded to the consultation, with half of those being in support of the policy with no changes.

Invercargill commercial property owner Maitland Booth asked for the council to consider writing off rates for commercial property owners in town for six months.

“We are applying for rates write-off rather than deferral as the tenants are struggling to pay the rents let alone outgoings, the benefit to the city and the council is getting and keeping the shops full and regaining the rates as tenants recover.”

In the council report, it read that several landlords of commercial premises were experiencing challenges as a result of tenants not paying.

He spoke to the meeting via phone call and said the inner-city revival was vital to the Invercargill economy.

“If there was some sort of rates incentive it may draw tenants in… the last thing we need is more empty shops in the centre of town.”

The council is expected to formally adopt the revised Rates Postponement and Remission policy at the next full council meeting.