Last week, Council prepared the draft budget which is often a controversial issue. Recent letters to the editor and some media articles have questioned our financial competence and performance.
Reports show the cost of living is increasing. Water, electricity, food and petrol are all going up. I appreciate no one likes paying rates and some will be unhappy with the proposed 6.9 per cent rate and charges increase, however, we need to balance the need to keep rates affordable with providing much needed services and infrastructure to our community.
A 6.9 per cent rise means that the average property rates will increase by about $84 per year or $1.62 per week. Based on the latest available information, Bass Coast currently has the 16th lowest average rates and charges per property of the 79 Victorian councils.
Councils like ours are increasingly called upon by other levels of government to deliver services without funding or where funding reduces over time. There is then a community expectation that service will continue and we need to find the money to fund it.
For Bass Coast this includes our Home and Community Care service to over 2,500 clients, our library service, providing supervisors at school crossings and partnering in kindergarten services.
Being accountable to our community is a core part of Council business. We make information available to the community in a range of ways including advertisements, news stories, Council meetings and briefings as well as including information on our website, twitter account and the Coastell newsletter.
Information about our financial sustainability is published every year in our Annual Report. Here interested readers will find information on our debt vs equity, loan repayments and past operating results. We also compare results over financial years to give an indication of the trend. This information is publicly available and is a wonderful resource if you are interested in our financial management.
Finally, all ratepayers are welcome to have their say on the budget through our submission process. The full budget document is available on our website under Council>News & Publications>Budget. If you have feedback on the budget, please write to us before 5.00pm on Tuesday, 19 July. You can also request to be speak to your submission in front of the committee of councillors. Please, if you have feedback, take this opportunity to have your say.