From the Mayor’s Desk: Cr Claire Pontin

IT is the time of year for us to put our budget and operational plan out for public comment ahead of adoption in June.

Please have a look at it and give us some feedback, recognising, of course, that each year we must decide how to spread the money that we receive over a large geographic area and the over 31 services that we fund each year.

And it is never enough to do what we would like to do.

The document (draft Delivery Program and Draft Operational Plan) also outlines our fees and charges for next year and most have been put up a bit to help cover the inflation costs of the goods and services we provide.

This also means that the annual increase of 3.1 percent (recommended by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal) has once again been built into our rates.

This does not mean that everyone’s rates will go up – the impact of the changes in property value (set by the State Valuer-General) between individual areas and properties often has a greater impact.

This is all set out in the documents that are now on public exhibition.

I should also mention that the uncertainty surrounding oil and fuel prices has made it difficult to set budgets, but at the end of the day we must make do with what we’ve got.

If fuel prices surge higher, this could impact the amount we can deliver within the budget.

The good news is that due to disaster funding for our damaged roads network, we will be spending over $250m of new money on restoring our roads and bridges over the next few years.

This will have a significant impact.

Councils in NSW, following the lead of the Country Mayors Association, have increased their advocacy to the Federal Government to increase the annual Financial Assistance Grants that go to Councils across Australia.

The call is to increase it from 0.5 percent of tax revenue back to the previous level of one percent.

Currently, MidCoast Council receives just over $20m each year through these grants, which are “untied”, meaning they are not linked to specific projects, except that nearly half must be spent on roads. Doubling this amount would solve many of our budgetary issues.

I will join in and write to relevant Ministers (including the Prime Minister and Treasurer) and Federal MPs again asking them to help with rising cost of living increases by increasing funding to local Councils to reduce the need for squeezed Councils to constantly increase their fees and rates.

For more information see https://haveyoursay.midcoast.nsw.gov.au

By Claire PONTIN, MidCoast Mayor