April 29, 2021
South Burnett Regional Council’s fees and charges will rise by an average of 1 per cent from July 1.
At Wednesday’s General Meeting, Councillors approved the 2021-22 Fees and Charges Schedule as part of their Budget preparations.
The Schedule covers Council charges for providing services such as dog registrations, hall hire, camping fees at Lake Boondooma and Yallakool, swimming pool entry charges etc.
It also sets fees for building and plumbing services.
Finance General Manager Susan Jarvis said most charges had risen by CPI.
The main exceptions were statutory charges levied by higher levels of government that Council has no control over, and small things such as photocopying fees where a one per cent rise was more trouble than it was worth and/or primarily impacted pensioners.
She said Council was a non-profit organisation and its aim was to recover the costs of providing services to the community.
Council approves its Schedule of Fees and Charges one to two months before the new financial year to allow staff time to update Council’s information and billing systems.
However, the new charges will not come into effect until July 1.
Since the region’s finance situation is as bad as it is claimed to be, I guess no-one will complain too much about such small fee increases to have more income by the Council. However, ratepayers will expect that our Councillors do their bit and save money, too. Especially in their many controversial beautification projects. Why not downsize those to the absolute necessary, fix what needs fixing and leave the rest until more finance is available? From the various social media discussions, this seems to be the overwhelming expectations by your constituents.
If you’re forming your opinions from social media you’re living in a bubble. Social media quickly corrals you into a silo where you’re fed an increasing diet of things you agree with until one day you become convinced the whole world believes the same things you do, no matter how whacko they are. Trouble is the real world really doesn’t agree with you and there is a wide range of opinions on almost every topic – some stupid, some brilliant. Get out, read widely and you’ll soon discover just how out of touch with reality social media can make you become. And how quickly.
Well said, Bill