Local community groups who use halls owned by City of Ballarat hope they’ll soon escape forking out for building insurance.
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If the local hall is worth more than $250,000, council charges a portion of the building insurance premium to the group that rents it out. For properties worth under that amount, a premium cannot be calculated.
The Burrumbeet Soldiers Memorial Hall committee are one of 71 community groups which pay a portion of insurance premiums to council, which totaled $26,060.53 for the 2017/18 financial year.
Burrumbeet’s hall committee secretary Alan McCartney said volunteers had spent more than 12 years of “time, effort and money” improving their hall, only to get “slugged” because the hall is worth more than $250,000.
“It means we’ve got to work harder to raise funds to pay them, whereas before we might have been able to put those funds into improvements,” he said.
“It’ll make some hall committees think twice about putting work into a hall, if they're going to get charged.”
City of Ballarat received a total of $26,060.53 for the 2017/18 financial year from community groups, with payments ranging from $11.60 to a maximum of $3,357.51 for a year’s worth of insurance.
The Burrumbeet Soldiers Memorial Hall committee paid around $180 in the last financial year. The money they raise is predominately from renting out the hall for events, catering and raffles.
A decision on the insurance premiums will be made at Wednesday night’s ordinary council meeting.
Unusually, council officers have offered two potential recommendations: keep charging the premiums, or discontinue them for community groups.
North Ward councillor Grant Tillett, who called for the policy to be reviewed, said such halls were “an important piece of community infrastructure” and acted like Town Halls for outlying regions.
In a report to be tabled on Wednesday night, council officers stated that if the municipality “wishes to give relief from the building insurance premium” it would only be fair that all community groups are excused from the insurance premium.
But assets “leased by private individuals for private or commercial enjoyment”, such as boatsheds, would still receive a charge for insurance.
