Although residents will suffer another 9.6 per cent overall rate rise for the second consecutive year after the Southern Downs Regional Council adopted the 2011/12 budget on Monday, the council believes this will now be reduced to 6 to 6.5 per cent increases in future years.
This week’s decision will result in about 75 per cent of residential ratepayers paying an extra $100 or less in their rates for 2011/2012.
Warwick businesses have been dealt the biggest blow as the council moves to have the same rate in the dollar as Stanthorpe businesses.
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,” Mayor Ron Bellingham said.
Cr Bellingham felt this was a responsible budget to ensure the longer term sustainability of the local government.
“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.
“We could for political reasons have a lower rate increase but whacked on a flood levy.
“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 the council, and assist with recovery from the impact of the recent natural disasters in our region.”
Cr Bellingham said the impact on ratepayers could have been substantially less if local governments received two per cent of the income tax.
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For more on the budget, see inside.
Story: Rebecca Brown
