[Tracey Walker]

Hi Rod,

The RP executive was part of the working group and will be lodging a submission.

The final submission will be posted on the forum.

[Tracey Walker]

Hi Marilyn,

We changed our formula calculation this year (2017/2018) and went to relative change based on valuations. Which Council thought was a fair and equitable approach to splitting, we do however have base amounts for residential and minimums for our business categories.

We took this from the IPART discussion paper April 2016 – ‘Freezing existing rate paths’ on pg. 40 even though our proposed merger has been cancelled.

I’m happy to provide further information if you need, just drop me an email or give me a call.

[Tracey Walker]

Hi Paula,
We still haven’t decided whether or not too

[Tracey Walker]

Hi Suzi,

we are currently looking at our delegations here, its a monthly ritual.

[Tracey Walker]

Hi Sue,
Sorry for my late reply we have 80,000 assessments, 5,000 sundry debtor account and do our own in-house recovery. I currently have myself (rates manager) 2 x team leaders, 9 revenue officers and 1 trainee. We don’t do water

[Tracey Walker]

Cherie,

This is still up for debate I would prefer one line as Suzi mentioned as a Pathway Council, but management is still deciding what is best for the ratepayer to understand.

[Tracey Walker]

Hi All,
We used our DWM vacant land charge to identify our residential vacant land and have put in place a process similar to Simone’s as we prorata from date of registration now for rates and waste, we adjust from the sub-classification and charge from the next quarter. As for business we used the stormwater coding where there was no stormwater we did a desktop audit such as DA/CC/OCC, GIS, and Google and where we could not ascertain whether it was vacant or not we classified as non vacant and will wait for the ratepayer to request a review.

We also have a monthly compliance reports that already pick up on most of this coding so that will be reviewed as well.

Kylie in relation to your question if there is a structure that can be used for “storage or treatment of goods” than it needs to be non vacant, regardless of the size is my understanding.

[Tracey Walker]

Sorry Megan, I misread the classification as non-vacant, you are correct its $100.

[Tracey Walker]

Megan,
Just be aware that the base amount for industrial is $200 not $100. But yes Robert is correct if you round the rate in the $ it will calculate the incorrect amount.
Tracey

[Tracey Walker]

Hi Maria,
My understanding is that as under s23 of the legislation vacant land will receive a 50% discount, and further in s28 (ad valorem rate formula) shows how it should be calculated. Therefore I could not see how it would be challenged in court.

[Tracey Walker]

Hi Mchelle,

Our Sundry Debt Management Policy on this website is up to date, we have just reviewed our debt Recovery and Hardship Assistance Policy as well. I have forwarded your posts onto Dallas (Team Leader Billing & Recovery) to provide some further information to you.

[Tracey Walker]

Suzi, there was a few missing leading facts but isn’t there always in the news arena.
Such as charge will be on the back of the rate notice, the only way to reduce the charge is object to land values.

[Tracey Walker]

Hi Dana,
Wollongong still accept cheques across all our collection sites, at this stage there is no mention of changing. We are trying to phase out people paying by cash and although we have EFTPOS, we don’t allow card not present transactions over the phone. But we are currently working on both the process and policy to introduce that, so I can only assume that cheques will remain for a little while yet.

[Tracey Walker]

Anita, we contact the ratepayer/developer/solicitor and advise there is a credit and ask for instructions. 9 out of 10 times they request the money back, the justification of this is the majority of time we don’t know who has paid it especially if its paid through BPay, Australia Post or there is settlements taking place.

Carla in answer to your request Wollongong commenced pro-rata the same year Shellharbour did and we have had some questions from solicitors over it, but we have not be challenged in court.

[Tracey Walker]

Hi,
Yes we do this at Wollongong for our residential category. We calculated the expected permissible for residential and then divide it by 2 to come up with the base amount yield and ad valorem yield. we then divide the number of assessments on the base amount portion to come with a figure and divide the land value by the ad valorem portion to come with the rate in dollar.

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