Gloomy Outlook
Written on October 2nd , 2025 by Grey Blog
Gloomy Outlook
It will come as no surprise to many Grey District Ratepayers that the new library building now requires a 27% plus rise in operating costs.
These are the year-on-year costs to provide a library service. Even with the cost of inflation a rise in operating costs of 27% is exceptional and goes a long way towards explaining our rapidly rising rate demands. These costs will never go away and as ratepayers we are now stuck with higher operating costs for the forseeable future. Signally a gloomy future of further astronomical rate increases.
𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗽𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗮 𝟮𝟳% 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗟𝗶𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀? This is a good question and one that our Councillors and Mayor should have asked before beginning such an audacious project.
The facts as we can ascertain them -
At the moment the Library costs ratepayers 2.55% of council revenue so for every $100 of council revenue $2.55 goes to the library.
With the new library it will cost 3.24% of councils total revenue so for every $100 of revenue $3.24 goes to the library
The difference between $2.55 and $3.24 is 27% - so at least a 27% increase in Library running costs. (Based on the GDC press release.)
If we include the fact of an average 13% increase in rates then the actual increase in cost is likely to be more than 27% as council total revenue will have risen significantly. That is why GDC should provide the actual dollar amounts so we can be sure how much the New Library is going to cost us going forward? This isn’t a one-off cost, these are ongoing costs.
These are costs that would have been known before embarking on the project and yet the Mayor and Councillors led many people to believe that there would be no increase in operating costs - despite the truth being that there were always going to be significant increases in the annual cost to ratepayers.
Of course it is nice to have a new library but the question every ratepayer and Councillor should be asking - 𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙙𝙤 𝙬𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙖 𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙡𝙞𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙧𝙮?
It seems we now have a Council addicted to spending - unable to find savings or to live within budget?
(In the absence of any further information from GDC we believe these figures and calculations to be accurate if we receive more data we will happily update the blog-post)
```js client
If you wish to post anonymously there is no need to fill in the email field.
If you have trouble posting a comment please use a chrome browser. Comments may not work with Firefox or other browsers, we are working to rectify this.
