Around 20 residents have taken up Barkly Regional Council’s invitation to meet with its specialist Rates Team to bring their accounts up to date. Many of the issues surrounding the confusion were due to clerical errors stemming from out-of-date receipting processes from June 2022-January 2023, where rates payments were not recorded correctly. But now after centralising the Rates Team in Tennant Creek from Darwin, progress has been made to rectify procedures including the move to new receipting software Councilwise. The 2023-24 rates notices were issued to ratepayers last week, with the first instalment deadline on 30 September. While there are four payment methods available to ratepayers – BPAY, EFTpos, bank transfer and cheque - there is currently an issue with the BPAY number which the bank is working on fixing as soon as possible. In the meantime, the Rates Team asks residents to use the other three options available until the BPAY error is resolved by the bank. Additionally, the Rates Team urges ratepayers to avoid paying instalments with cash, as it presents problems finding a digital footprint of the payment. To make a payment via Eftpos or to talk to the Rates Team, call into 58 Peko Road or contact 8962 0031.
