The Burnie City Council welcomes the decision of the State Government to freeze the fire service levy for 2020-21.
Burnie City Council Mayor Steve Kons said “However it should not have taken an unprecedented crisis for this action to be taken with excessive increases imposed on ratepayers over the last 10 years and a review that appears to be going nowhere.
“Burnie City Council calls on the 2020-21 fire levy freeze to be replaced with increases no greater than CPI from 2021-22 and to remain in place until the outcome of the review is known and any changes debated, otherwise ratepayers will return to annual increases of 5-7% which have occurred over the past seven years, well above
CPI. Burnie City Council’s fire levy contribution has increased by 49.76% in the period July 2012 to July 2019.
“Increases are only a small part of the problem with the current model used to determine the fire levy outdated and unequitable to many ratepayers.”
Source: Burnie City Council