1 October 2020
Masterton District Council wants to cut printing and postage costs by encouraging people to sign up to receive their rates notices via email.
Every three months the council sends notices to ratepayers about the amount owing on their rates accounts. This costs around $25,000 a year in postage alone, and Finance Manager David Paris said it was an obvious area to reduce costs.
“The cost of printing the rates notices is another $17,000 a year, meaning we could be saving more than $40,000 a year if everyone got their notices via email,” Mr Paris said.
“While some people may still need to receive notices delivered on paper, we see email as the future and there is great potential for increasing the number that receive their rates notices that way.”
As an incentive, the council is offering $500 cash back on the November rates bill for three ratepayers who sign up for the eRates service by the end of October. This can be done via the MDC website or by calling the council on 06 370 6300.
Currently, about 3,000 rates notices are emailed – fewer than one in four properties.
“If we could get to at least half of our rates notices being sent via email that would be a significant saving that could be put to better use” Mr Paris said.