Council budget passes

By Lachlan Ellis

Moorabool Shire Council has passed its Budget for the 2023/24 financial year, after a motion to defer its consideration was narrowly lost.

Cr Tom Sullivan moved to defer the 2023/24 Budget “for a couple of weeks”.

“Could this matter be deferred for a while, for about a week or so? I think some of the responses I received back, I sense were inadequate. I’m asking could a couple of weeks be given…the reason I say that is because I did raise some matters with the CEO, and I don’t think we’ve received adequate responses to some of these matters.

“I’d like it to be thrashed out a bit more before that time…I think there has been a bit of haste in this process, not timewise, but material-wise.”

Cr David Edwards asked which matters specifically Cr Sullivan wanted further clarification on.

“Well, there was the matters of Council reserves, there were some questions over that I don’t think were adequately responded to. There were also matters about a different rating model, we got a very short response to that I don’t think was done in depth,” Cr Sullivan said.

The motion to defer the adoption of the Budget was seconded by Cr Paul Tatchell and supported by Cr Ally Munari, with Crs Edwards, Tonia Dudzik, and Moira Berry voting against to make the vote 3 – 3.

With the deciding vote, Mayor Cr Rod Ward voted against the motion to defer the adoption of the Budget.

With that, the recommendation to approve the 2023/24 Budget was moved by Cr Edwards and seconded by Cr Dudzik.

“I think we’ve had quite a significant amount of briefings on the Budget, it goes over a long period of time. As for the rating strategy, we do that in significant depth each year. But more important, I think this particular Budget provides a fair and equitable Budget. It’s a relatively safe Budget, which I think is really important in these risky times,” Cr Edwards said.

“This is actually well below what the CPI is. Unfortunately, we’re in a rate cap environment, and I think we will see some long-term detriment because of this.”

Cr Sullivan agreed that the Budget was a safe one in terms of works proposed, but voiced his opposition to the rating strategy in particular.

“My issue is that once again, it is not a fair and equitable rating strategy that we employ to gain the funds to do that [complete works]. I know it’ll be said that ‘oh, well that’s because of the valuations’. I recognise that the valuations are something that is beyond our control…once again we have a situation where one section of this community is going to be hit by a 14 to 16 per cent rate increase,” Cr Sullivan said.

“We do have levers to be able to change that. There are certain things that are a given, valuations are one, but we do have opportunities to use the levers at Council with differentials to actually do that.”

Cr Dudzik spoke of the “substantial work put in by Council officers to deliver important projects to the community”.

“I don’t think it’s right to try at the last minute to try and change the rating strategy. That’s something that takes months of preparation and work…we have discussed rating categories and strategies in the past and haven’t come up with a better option,” she said.

“It’s unusual, it does say in this Budget that 50 per cent of farm properties will actually get a rate decrease.”

Cr Tatchell voiced his agreement with Cr Sullivan’s comments.

“We have a privilege here, so does all government, to distribute funds from the public. It’s a privilege, not a right…we can have a fair Budget in terms of how it’s distributed, but the thing that always gets left out is, how do we raise the money? That is sort of where the fairness stops,” Cr Tatchell said.

In the end, Crs Edwards, Dudzik, Berry, and Ward voted in favour of passing the budget, and Crs Sullivan, Munari, and Tatchell voted against – thus, the Budget was passed.

The Capital Improvement Program for 2023/24 is $56.413 million (including $15 million in works carried forward from 2022/23). Of this, $41.591 million relates to new work, $12.282 million relates to renewal of assets and $2.54 million is for the upgrade of assets.

To view the 2023/2024 Budget in full, head to www.moorabool.vic.gov.au and search ‘budget’.