Treasurer Tim Pallas pledged $47.8 million from Tuesday's 2017/18 budget to the project, which will be designed by Development Victoria. 

The government hub is expected to see jobs from a range of departments shifted to Ballarat, rather than the full relocation of a single department or agency.

While planning on the hub is expected to commence immediately, construction should begin in early 2018 and be completed in mid-2020.

The hub will also house all of the current state public servants in Ballarat, bringing the total number of employees in the building to 1000.  

While the government is yet to specify which departments or agencies the jobs will come from, an answer is expected in the coming weeks. 

The government’s commitment to shift jobs to Civic Hall was “the best opportunity we could have had” to revitalise the city’s CBD, Committee of Ballarat Janet Dore said.

Ms Dore has long campaigned for an infusion of government jobs to Ballarat to boost the CBD.

Ms Dore said she was “completely open to whatever solution emerges” for repurposing the site.

“Along with the activation that will occur at the station with the development there it’s just sensational, this will be a huge boost for the centre of Ballarat,” she said.

Ms Dore said she would like to see roles from departments which foster renewable energy like Sustainable Victoria or the Environment Protection Agency.

Western Victoria MP Josh Morris has questioned with the government is just “shuffling the deck chairs” in its promised jobs injection.

The opposition has committed to moving the whole of VicRoads – about 560 employees – if elected.

“The government hasn’t provided any detail about what these jobs are actually going to be so the government have got some real questions to be answered about whether or not these are new jobs to Ballarat.”

Ballarat City Mayor Samantha McIntosh said council’s lobbying, which has persisted through three council terms, had paid off.

“We’re yet to see the final detail so we’ll look forward to working very closely with government to see what the details will be but we know that 600 new jobs to the centre of town will certainly deliver to the activation and further economic development that we need.”

Ballarat commuters battling peak hour crowds are also set to benefit from the budget, with a further 39 VLocity train carriages to be built at a cost of $311.1 million.

This comes on top of the existing 48 carriages already funded, of which the Ballarat line has thus far been the main recipient. 

Domestic buses will also gain a boost with with a $4.4 million expansion of four regional bus services.

An additional 100 parking spaces will also be funded on the multi-storey car park to be developed as part of the Ballarat Station Precinct.  

The additional spaces will address one of the two primary concerns with November’s announcement, the other being the bus interchange, which was formally unveiled on Friday.  

The government will also take the first steps to establishing a new public primary school in Lucas, with an unidentified amount of money being put towards purchasing land and developing plans for a school.

However questions remain around the timeline of the project, with the government yet to commit to a date when the school can be expected.

This follows Monday's $9 million announcement which will see major upgrades at Ballarat Secondary College's Mount Rowan and Woodmans Hill.

The ongoing mental health crisis in regional Victoria will also be assisted through the creation of a 12-bedroom mental health facility in Ballarat at a cost of $8.3 million.

The facility will service people from throughout the Grampians region with acute mental illness.  

Ballarat is set to house one of two new family violence courts in regional Victoria as part of the states $1.9 billion investment across the state.

The Ballarat and Shepparton Magistrates Courts will share in $130.3 million to establish the two specialist courts.

As well as assisting families who are impacted by family violence, the courts will also seek to provide programs for perpetrators such as men’s behaviour change programs.  

A further $11 million will be put into the mobile black spot program to assist flood and fire prone areas with phone signal.

Regional businesses will receive a 25 per cent cut to the payroll tax, while the payroll tax free threshold will increase to $625,000 from July 1, increasing to $650,000 the following financial year.

The cut, which will make Victorian payroll tax the lowest in the country, is expected to impact about 4000 businesses throughout regional Victoria.  

More than $530 million will be allocated to maintain and upgrade roads and bridges throughout regional Victoria, as well as for further expansions.

Among the roads set to benefit will be the Western Freeway and the Ballarat/Maryborough Road.