{"id":231327,"date":"2019-03-21T17:19:28","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T07:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=231327"},"modified":"2020-09-21T12:56:23","modified_gmt":"2020-09-21T02:56:23","slug":"sbrc-joins-grants-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2019\/03\/21\/sbrc-joins-grants-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"SBRC Joins Grants Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

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SBRC Finance portfolio chair
Cr Ros Heit<\/figcaption><\/figure>March 20, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

South Burnett Regional Council will join a national campaign to pressure the Federal Government into raising Financial Assistance Grants (FAGs) funding.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

This shortfall has left ratepayers to shoulder the difference – either through rate rises, service cuts or both.<\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time of the 2008 amalgamation, Council received $7,841,223 in FAGs grants,\u201d Cr Heit said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for the 2018-19 budget, that amount had decreased to $6,998,730.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

This would dramatically reduce pressure to raise money through rate increases.<\/p>\n

The South Burnett was particularly hard hit because the region’s population was not growing, Cr Heit said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This meant the burden of ever-increasing costs had to be shared among a rate base that was not growing, either.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

This had led some politicians to suggest FAGs funding should be redistributed so that smaller councils received more, and larger councils less.<\/p>\n

However, most councils were opposed to this and wanted to see FAGs funding restored to its former 1 per cent level instead.<\/p>\n

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