February 18, 2017
South Burnett rates could rise as much as 12.1 per cent if the Federal Government does not lift a three-year freeze on Financial Assistance Grants in this year’s Federal Budget.
As well, the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) has warned that the South Burnett Regional Council could be forced to cut almost 10 per cent of its workforce.
The ALGA launched a national campaign on Friday to pressure the Federal Government to keep its promise to restore FAGs indexation in the 2017-18 Budget.
The ALGA said the three-year indexation freeze, introduced in 2014-15, has already cost Australian councils close to $1 billion in lost revenue, forcing them to meet the costs of CPI rises and population growth out of their own pockets.
The freeze has already introduced a permanent reduction in the FAGs base of approximately 13 per cent.
The ALGA has now released a case study document which profiles the effects the FAGs freeze has had on 59 councils around Australia.
The South Burnett Regional Council is one of the case studies in the ALGA report.
Apart from a steep rate increase and the loss of up to 30 jobs, failure to restore indexation could force the SBRC to close community facilities such as libraries and pools, and reduce road repairs.
“FAGs payments to local government from the Commonwealth are important to every council across the country,” ALGA president Mayor David O’Loughlin said.
“FAGs can be spent on whatever the community needs and are a vital part of councils’ revenue base, allowing them to provide and maintain community infrastructure such as local roads, swimming pools and libraries.
“For many smaller rural and remote councils, FAGs form the majority of their revenue and it is these councils that are likely to have been hit hardest by the FAGs indexation freeze.”
Mr O’Loughlin said the impact of the freeze varied between councils and communities.
“Some councils have reported that in the past three years of the freeze, they’ve had to re-evaluate what services and infrastructure they can continue to provide to adjust to the reduced revenue levels,” he said.
“Other councils have been forced to cut services in areas such as childcare, bike paths, road works and landfills, and reduce operating hours for libraries and public pools.”
Mr O’Loughlin said while the government had indicated the freeze would end in 2017-18, it had still not given an iron-clad guarantee this would occur.
He hoped the ALGA case studies would go a long way towards raising the Federal Government’s awareness of the real impact of the decision to freeze FAGs indexation.
“All of us need to do what we can to ensure the government keeps its commitment to restore indexation to FAGs from July 1 this year.”
- Download: ALGA FAGS Case Studies (404kb PDF)
Is this Council doing anything to curb rate rises of this magnitude or are they simply hellbent on wasting money on such projects as buying buildings that are not needed i.e. the old Ergon Building in Kingaroy. Council owns significant buildings in every town in the South Burnett. We don’t need another one.