The South Burnett Regional Council is projecting a $508,000 deficit instead of the $1.689 million surplus it originally hoped to achieve when it brought down its Budget last July.
Councillors were told at today’s general meeting the 2012-13 deficit would be caused by four things:
- A $313,687 drop in Council-generated revenues
- A $361,322 rise in recurrent expenditures
- A $857,476 loss in State and Federal Government operational grants, and
- A $1,084,232 loss in State Government capital grants
The deficit forecast was the outcome of a half-year review of the council’s Budget undertaken in December.
Councillors heard that while the move from surplus to deficit won’t significantly change the focus of the current Budget, the flow-on effect would have impacts on next year’s Budget.
Councillors will begin working on framing the 2013-14 Budget in the next few months.
The most significant causes of the reversal were the loss of $890,000 from this year’s Queensland Local Government Grants Commission allocation and a cut of $520,000 in State roads funding.
The SBRC was informed of both these losses at November’s general meeting.
Council had already anticipated a reduction of 2.84 per cent in this year’s Grants Commission allocation and had budgeted for it.
But when the grants were announced they found the SBRC’s allocation had been cut by 10.9 per cent, leading to the $890,000 loss.
The extra $520,000 loss in road funding came from a sudden decision by the State Government to reduce spending on TIDS (the Transport Infrastructure Development Scheme) from $63 million to $40 million as an economy measure.
At today’s meeting Cr Cheryl Dalton said she was “dismayed” by the news.
“Five years ago when we were forced to merge four councils together we were handed a desperate financial position we had to work our way out of,” she said.
“It’s taken us years to do it. But now – just when we thought we’d turned the corner – we’ve been thrown back in the hole again.”
She was backed by Cr Barry Green and Cr Damien Tessmann who both said they thought it was bad policy to make sudden cuts to core funding programs after Budget decisions had been made.
Cr Green questioned the sustainability of the current situation.
He said ratepayers have been “picking up the tab” for the Federal and State Governments since the 2008 council amalgamations. Many were now facing high cost of living pressures as a result of continued price hikes in rates and other essential service charges.
“This sort of situation can’t continue,” he said.
“I know of many people who are at their limits right now.”
Cr Tessmann said it was “diabolical” funding could be swept away at the stroke of a pen without any regard to the effects it produced at a grass-roots level.
He said no one had been able to explain to him why the SBRC could lose $890,000 in Grants Commission funding from its $58 million budget while much larger councils with much bigger budgets had lost far less.
- Related Article: Council Loses $1.4m In Grants
