Cr Ros Heit
South Burnett Regional Council will join a national campaign to pressure the Federal Government into raising Financial Assistance Grants (FAGs) funding.
On Wednesday, Councillors voted unanimously to submit motions at the annual Australian Local Government Association National Assembly, which will be held in Canberra in June.
They will endorse the ALGA’s push to return FAGs funding to 1 per cent of all Commonwealth tax revenues, the same level it held in 1996.
Cuts to FAGs funding over the past 12 years led to councils’ share of the national tax cake reduce to just under 0.55 per cent.
This shortfall has left ratepayers to shoulder the difference – either through rate rises, service cuts or both.
Finance portfolio chair Cr Ros Heit said the South Burnett and all other Queensland councils have seen their share of FAGs funding steadily drop over the past 12 years.
“At the time of the 2008 amalgamation, Council received $7,841,223 in FAGs grants,” Cr Heit said.
“But for the 2018-19 budget, that amount had decreased to $6,998,730.”
Cr Heit said if Council was receiving the same proportion of funding it enjoyed a decade ago, it would receive almost double its 2018-19 allocation.
This would dramatically reduce pressure to raise money through rate increases.
The South Burnett was particularly hard hit because the region’s population was not growing, Cr Heit said.
This meant the burden of ever-increasing costs had to be shared among a rate base that was not growing, either.
Councils in fast-growing areas of south-east Queensland – such as Brisbane, the Gold and Sunshine Coasts – did not suffer as badly because their ratepayer base was constantly expanding.
This had led some politicians to suggest FAGs funding should be redistributed so that smaller councils received more, and larger councils less.
However, most councils were opposed to this and wanted to see FAGs funding restored to its former 1 per cent level instead.
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