At Glosderry City Improvement District’s Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 1 November 2017 not only the past year’s activities were reviewed, but an extension of the CID term and planning for the next five years was also considered.
In view of a Special Ratings Area levy of 8 percent on property tax, members were especially interested in the budget planned for the next five years. Budget growth in the coming year will be 28,3 per cent but thereafter it will be restricted to 7,8 percent.
“The impact of the 28.3 per cent increase will be reduced significantly by the utilisation of retained income (existing surplus funds), as highlighted in the budget and during the AGM,” says Geocentric’s Gene Lohrentz.
The income of GCID is expected to grow from R1,807,237 in 2018/19 to R2 129 231 in 2022/23.
Expenditure on the core services of GCID is expected to increase from 59,1 per cent of the operational budget to 68,2 percent in 2022/23, with public safety and the monitoring of CCTV cameras taking the lion’s share. General expenditure, under which administration and management falls, was restricted to between 22,6 to 26,1 per cent over the five year period.
The five-year implementation plan comprises of the following six programmes:
- GCID management and operations, including maintaining a fully operational office and ensuring that all legal requirements are met and that good relationships are maintained with all stakeholders;
- Public Safety and Law Enforcement Initiatives, that will entail close co-operation with the Police, local authority and security organisations to identify root causes of crime, analyse threats, conduct visible patrolling and utilize all “eyes and ears”;
- Cleaning initiatives, comprizing of developing, monitoring and evaluating strategies to combat littering and illegal dumping, to ensure clean streets and sidewalks and to promote waste minimization;
- Urban management initiatives, by participating in ward planning, the Integrated Development Plan and the Capital Budget processes, especially with the identification of problem areas in terms of street lighting, road and storm-water problems, road signs and overgrown grass, as well as the removal of illegal posters;
- Social intervention initiatives, including a strategy to address homelessness, to co-ordinate social development programmes and to promote public awareness of social issues; and
- Marketing, entailing the publishing of regular newsletters, press releases to the local media, a website, member visits and meetings.
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