A RIVERLAND council will provide financial relief to businesses, community groups and ratepayers facing economic hardship due to COVID-19.
At a special meeting last week, Berri Barmera Council members voted to allow the CEO to grant reductions in leasing and licencing fees, waive fines and penalties related associated with late payment of rates, and enter into payment plans with ratepayers facing financial difficulties.
The measures, along with a suspension of legal action and debt collection for the recovery of outstanding rates, will be in effect until August 31, with a review set to occur in late August to determine if an extension is necessary.
Berri Barmera Mayor Peter Hunt said the council was committed to providing relief to ratepayers while continuing to provide essential services.
“We’re like everyone else, we can understand the difficulties that are going to occur,” he said.
“We still have to keep the towns going, and we know that our ratepayers are struggling, and we’ll try to do whatever we can to assist in any way.
“We’re going through deliberations for our 2020/21 budget and we have put a significant focus on what we can do to help people while still looking after our towns and staff.”
Berri Barmera Council CEO Karyn Burton said the measures were put in place to assist locals facing economic hardship, particularly those who have lost jobs or whose businesses have closed due to the virus.
“People are obviously going to find themselves in quite some financial difficulty… of course that then leads to them having difficulty paying their rates,” she said.
“The other instances are not necessarily with rates, but lease fees and licence fees where community groups and sporting bodies pay a lease to council for the properties that they use.
“There are a lot of sporting groups who have lost all ways of raising revenue, so council have recognised that and have delegated me the authority to work with those groups to either waive those fees or work with them on a discount.
“After all the chaos, when this is finished, let’s hope that everyone can get back to business as usual and they don’t have to try and recover due to a situation they’ve had no control over.”
Ms Burton said the council had been advised to continue with planned capital projects despite the pandemic’s potential impact on revenue.
“We’re still looking at our new budget for the next financial year,” she said.
“But all the advice that we’ve been getting from State and Federal Governments and economists is to push on with our capital projects anyway and try to get whatever grants we can and access borrowing now that interest rates are pretty low.
“That will create some stimulus and some employment opportunities in our local economy.
“We need to keep that flow and that activity happening in our local region.”
Councillors also agreed to meet electronically for the foreseeable future, with meetings to be live-streamed or published on the council’s website shortly after each meeting occurs.
For more information call the council on 8582 1922 or visit www.berribarmera.sa.gov.au.