The Noosa Council draft 2023/2024 budget has been prepared with a back to basics focus and with reference to the recently adopted Corporate Plan.
With cost-of-living pressures growing and significant increases to land valuations across the Shire for the second consecutive year, Council has faced significant challenges in ensuring this “Back to Basics“ budget is equitable and delivers critical projects for the community.
Residents’ input as part of the liveability survey and corporate plan consultation greatly influenced this year’s budget. Similarly, all councillors have been heavily involved in the budget process which has been workshopped extensively and our primary goal and consideration has been to minimise as much as possible the impact of costs to ratepayers.
This has in so many ways been the most challenging of budgets. Councillor Wilkie referred to it as the most challenging since de-amalgamation. Record inflation, rising costs, staff shortages have all occurred but also we have as a council had to take into account the re-valuation of our land for the second year in a row.
Despite all this, Council has worked very hard to mitigate the flow-through of land valuations, resulting in about 4000 property owners seeing a reduction in their rates compared to the previous year. This is due to the mechanisms we’ve used to manage the volatile land valuations, which rose by an average of 62 per cent across the shire. A huge workload and effort by all councillors and council staff have ensured that for 63 per cent of ratepayers on the minimum general rate, the rise in their annual rates bill will come in at 5.5 per cent – well below CPI. Over 80 per cent of ratepayers will have an average increase below CPI. Every eligible pensioner is now set to receive the full pensioner rebate of $115, where previously it was a sliding scale depending on eligibility. We sustained a modest operating surplus of $121,000 to remain financially sustainable and significantly there’s a freeze on increases to all levies for the 2023-24 financial year.
Our determination has been to keep rates as low as possible for as many of our ratepayers as possible, but there are some properties outside the 80 per cent which will incur significant rate increases, incurring much debate. Challenges have been significant and discussions very robust with agreement in some areas and disagreement in others. There are aspects of this budget that I don’t support, no doubt other councillors feel the same- areas that have been debated heavily and like all decisions that are put forward, ultimate determination is by what the majority support. But the draft budget we put out for community consultation today is a collective one from all councillors who sit around this table.
Although we have worked incredibly hard to keep rates as low as possible for the majority of our rate-payers we have delivered a draft budget that will deliver ongoing and significant services and infrastructure to our community. Key initiatives and highlights of our $132 million budget include:
• A continued approach to adopting a modest operating surplus.
• All key statutory financial sustainability targets being met .
• Increased investment in shire-wide parks, trails and roads maintenance.
• Ongoing affordable housing advocacy and policy implementation.
• Continuation of the Go Noosa free weekend bus initiative.
• Continuation of the Living Well Noosa program.
• Progression of the Destination Management Plan.
• Support for small businesses with the implementation of the Small Business Friendly Council program.
• Ongoing science-based water quality monitoring program.
• Ongoing vegetation mapping review to identify critical bushfire hazards and inform conservation.
• New waste recovery initiatives to reduce recoverable materials going into landfill and eliminate illegal dumping.
• A capital program of $39 million invested to maintain and improve the condition of existing infrastructure as well as provide future growth
• A disaster recovery infrastructure program estimated at over $80million to reinstate infrastructure impacted by the February 2022 floods with funding provided by Qld Reconstructive Authority
• Key capital works projects including Lawnville Road Bridge renewal, Garth Proud bridge renewal, Noosaville-Eumundi Road Resource Recovery Centre expansion as we as stabilisation works at Ross Crescent and increased investment in the Shire’s road network.
We’ve had the opportunity to have our say, and now we are seeking our community’s feedback once again on the proposed draft 2023/2024 budget which is open for consultation and feedback for two weeks, from Monday 22 May through to Sunday 4 June for residents, business, community groups and business associations. We want to hear from you- about your priorities, ideas, suggests and areas of concern. Responses will inform and shape the final decisions for adoption of the budget on the 30 June.
The Council Budget Consultation 2023/24 is now live on Your Say Noosa – yoursay.noosa.qld.gov.au/budget-priorities-2023-24
In addition to the option to provide feedback via the short survey, the community can also register to attend a Community Info Session and talk to councillors and staff about their budget questions on 29 May. Register by emailing budget@noosa.qld.gov.au
We welcome our community’s feedback and we thank you for participating in the budget feedback process over the coming two weeks. This is your budget and your community and we want to hear from you so please engage as much as you can. Thank you and until next month, stay safe, Clare.
