Pitt Street has properties with the highest value in the town
Despite a trend of poor collection of taxes from property owners in New Amsterdam, the municipality has no definitive plan to improve the annual rate of tax collection, Deputy Mayor Harold Dabydeen said.
The disclosure was made in response to a question from a resident after the council presented its proposed 2013 budget at a public forum on Monday, at the Town Hall.
The municipality has budgeted to collect $62 million in property tax for 2013.
In 2011, property tax collection was budgeted at $62.9 million. However, Municipal Treasurer Sharron Anderson said the council only collected $28.6 million of 46 per cent of what was budgeted. Last year, $63.7 million was budgeted as property tax, but only $23.2 million was collected or 36.3 per cent.
Anderson, who presented the budget, noted “At every budget presentation, I always tell citizens that this town is where you live and I always try to remind you that the good book says that one supposed to render to Caesar what is due to him, and if you are a property owner, it is your obligation as a citizen to pay your taxes. Because it is the same money that you pay us, you depend on us to have your drains cleared and your garbage picked up, and then when we don’t deliver, you say that the council is not doing anything.”
According to the deputy mayor, the municipality has embarked on a project of sending debt collectors into the field to rake in revenue from defaulting rate payers.
He pointed out that last year, only a little more than one third of what was budgeted was realised as of the previous years.
“We know that we have a lot of money outside there to collect, but we have not come to any concrete solution… we would have continued to have our debt collecting officers go around individually to them to see how we can recover revenues owned to us. So, if we cannot get many results of that, council will have to decide on a decision, whether we will have to move to the courts.” Dabydeen said.
Former Mayor Barbara Pilgrim-Roberts, who has since left the council, noted that the municipality is not getting the quantum of revenue from properties within the township, because of the current valuation system.
“So I would urge that the council urge the ministry, that is, the valuation division, to hasten the valuation exercise so that council would be able to get enough money for its programmes.”
Pilgrim also suggested that the council could move in the direction of pay rate execution, which she said was very successful in the past in terms of raking in outstanding revenue for the municipality.
Meanwhile, the municipality’s 2013 budget is $126.2 million, of which $45.7 million or 36 per cent will go towards wages. According to Anderson, 95 per cent of the council’s workers are paid below the country’s minimum wage of $50,000.
Some $15.5 million will be spent on works within the town, while a further $2 million has been allocated for the development of parks and play grounds in New Amsterdam.