SDRC Adopts 2011/12 Budget
The Southern Downs Regional Council today handed down its 2011/2012 Budget with a 9.6 per cent overall rise in rate revenue across the region. Mayor Ron Bellingham said the priority of councillors was to be firstly financially responsible to maintain a sound economic base for the region that will continue to fund services at a level expected by the community.
“This budget is very open, and it is clear and concise what our intentions are,” Cr Bellingham said.
“It would have been tempting for councillors to produce an ‘election budget’ that would be more popular with ratepayers in this, an election year, but that would not have been the responsible thing to do,” he said.
“My message to ratepayers is that Councillors have scrutinised the budget line by line to reduce costs and many capital projects have been deferred to future years. However, at the end of the day, we needed to increase rates by this level to maintain existing services, cover services devolved by the state government to Council, and assist with recovery from the impact of the recent natural disasters in our region.
“This budget has taken much deliberation, with particular attention on how to budget for the flood disaster recovery works,” said Mayor Ron Bellingham.
“We had two options. One was to introduce a flat flood levy on top of rates as some other councils have; the other was to incorporate the cost into the overall rating figure,” Cr Bellingham said.
Cr Bellingham pointed out that the Council had chosen not to impose a separate Flood Levy.
“Such a levy would have meant that Mrs Pensioner down the street on the minimum rate pays the same flood levy as Mr Big Business in the industrial estate.
“The majority of councillors thought it was far more equitable to cover flood related costs using a percentage based rate.”
The 2011/2012 Budget delivers an “accounting” deficit of $5,509,245, with projected surpluses into the future.
“The 2011/12 deficit is the result of accounting for a one off flood funding payment in the 2010/11 year from the state and federal governments for works which will be carried out over the next two years.
“We received $13.189 million in 2010/11 which must be accounted for in that financial year even though the work will be conducted and the money spent in this year and next,” Cr Bellingham said.
Mayor Ron Bellingham acknowledged the work of Councillors and the Rating Consultation Group which helped fine tune categories under the region-wide differential rating system introduced last year.
This year, the Commercial and Industrial rating category has been unified across the region’s towns so that comparable properties in the northern and southern regions will pay the same rate in the dollar.
Residential categories have also been revisited.
“These changes cannot be made without creating some winners and some losers, however from now on all changes should be equal across the region,” Cr Bellingham said.
“The inequities produced by amalgamating two different systems from the former Warwick and Stanthorpe shires should now cease.”
Another challenge for Council this year are extra expenses incurred due to state government requirements of local government. Cr Bellingham said that in 2011/12, Council faced over $1.556 million in quantifiable operating expenses and over $1.412 million in capital costs caused by state government legislation, devolvement of state government powers to local government and withdrawal of significant state subsidies. (See page 11 of this media package for details).
“Those are costs we must incur, and unfortunately, ratepayers are picking up the tab,” he said.
Cr Bellingham highlighted the removal of the 40 per cent subsidy on water and sewerage capital works as of most concern.
“Council were entitled to 40 per cent and could pick up to as much as an 80 per cent subsidy in recognition of the difficulty of meeting the cost of new water and sewerage infrastructure in smaller communities.
“That is no longer the case, which will impact on the delivery of key capital projects.”
Cr Bellingham said that in the end this budget was part of a strategic plan towards a sustainable 10 year forecast.
“The State Government has been blunt in saying it will not tolerate any Council bringing down a budget with operating deficits forecast into the future,” he said.
“Last year we forecast that we would need to bring in a rise of this magnitude to meet long term sustainability requirements, and that was even prior to the floods.
“The good news is that from now on rate rises should be more modest.”
“As a Council, we are very proud of this region and we want to continue to maintain a level of lifestyle for our residents that make it a great place to live.”
“The perception is we’re massively increasing the rates, but that is not the case,” the Mayor said. “In reality, over 75 per cent of residential ratepayers will face less than a $100 increase in their rates bill.”
“My message to the community is that service delivery has been examined and will continue to be examined, but it is difficult to see where a lot of savings can be made.
“If we withdraw too many services or defer too many capital projects to save costs, then inevitably the community will not be happy.”
“To maintain services and stay in the operating black this is the quantum of money we need to raise from ratepayers,” he said.
“It is also the case that we are still in negotiations with the state and federal governments over the quantum of flood recovery funding. Hopefully by the time we come out of this 12 month period we will be in a substantially better situation in that regard,” the Mayor said.
“We are now looking to a positive 12 months and future rates where the situation improves.”
Expenditure highlights
· $5.791 million for road maintenance
· $17.565 million repair flood damage to road network
· $4.454 million capital road works
· $4.327 million for water and sewerage capital works
· $4.091 million for sewerage operations
· $5.551 million for water operations
· $310,000 for parks, gardens and public spaces capital program
· $691,138 for parks and gardens operations
· $3.634 million for plant replacement (Grader $260,000, three rollers $390,000, three backhoes $460,000 and one 9-16 tonne truck $185,000)
· $2.1 million for library programs across the region
· $2.832 million for waste and garbage collection
· $582,000 for Information Technology capital expenditure
· $1.061 million for the Rural Lands program
· $459,000 for tourism
· $656,755 for economic development including $245,000 for new strategies including developing Tourism and Local Destination Action Plans $42,200, Food Security Plan $20,000 and establishing a Technology Hub in Stanthorpe
· $1.105 million in capital works cemeteries
· $800,000 for Dalveen/The Summit Waste Transfer Station
· $599,899 for insurance costs
