Ballarat City Council is set to release its draft budget and will unveil an unusual four possible rate rises for residents. The rate at which residents will be slugged all depends on the outcome of a request to the Electoral Services Commission which seeks to exempt the council from the Victorian rate capping scheme.
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The budget includes four possible rate rises residents could be hit with ranging from the council’s preferred 3.7 per cent rate rise to the state government’s Victorian blanket 2.5 per cent rate increase.
The council’s interim chief executive Frank Dixon said if the council was successful in its submission to the ESC it would push ahead with a 3.7 per cent increase, however, if it was only partially successful in its request residents may instead be hit with a 3.03 per cent rate rise or a 3.17 per cent rise.
He said the council had requested the exemption for the basis of obtaining infrastructure funding and Development Contribution Plan funding through residential rates. If the council were successful in charging residents for infrastructure funding through rate revenue the residential rates would rise by 3.03 per cent.
But, if the council were only successful in a pursuit to charge residents for development contribution plan funding the average ratepayer would be hit with a 3.17 per cent rise.
Mayor Des Hudson said he understood some residents would be frustrated by the uncertainty surrounding rates.
“Clearly this is not an ideal situation,” Cr Hudson said. “We would obviously prefer to have clarity about our proposed rate rise.”
Chief financial officer Glenn Kallio said the council must adopt its budget by June 30. If the council are yet to receive an outcome from the ESC prior to this date, it will be forced to implement rate capping meaning and could have a shortfall of more than a million dollars in its budget, he said.
Big ticket items include a $13.63 million investment into the city’s road construction and renewal, $5 million into the Ballarat West Employment Zone and $200,000 for the highly successful Winterlude festival.