The budget was nearly completed when COVID-19 forced the city into lockdown, with major economic consequences for everyone in Ballarat, including the council.

As an organisation, we stand to lose about $7 million from the closure of all of our facilities for several months, along with a predicted significant amount of rate debt.

This is my eighth year in local government and by far the most difficult budget to frame for a variety of reasons, including these difficult times thrust upon us by COVID-19 and the organisational impacts of the Victorian Ombudsman's Report.

We knew we had to find the balance between helping our residents through these tough times while keeping enough money in the coffers to maintain critical services and help kickstart the local economy once the pandemic has receded.

So how has the council done that?

To start, there will be no rate increases across the City of Ballarat in 2020/21.

However, this does not mean some households won't pay slightly higher rates than last year because property valuations have still gone up 5.4 per cent.

This is because the Victorian Government has legislated annual property valuations so there may be a slight increase in your property's value and therefore your rates.

To balance that out, we have reduced the rate in the dollar charge to achieve a zero rate increase, with overall residential increases to be a modest 0.9 per cent across the whole municipality and businesses to benefit greatly from a -3.8 per cent decrease.

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We have also frozen all our fees such as car parking, user fees and the waste levy we pay to the Victorian Government.

To help people badly affected by the pandemic, we have implemented a COVID-19 Financial Hardship Policy for residents who have experienced a 30 per cent decrease in income including rate deferrals, rate payment plans and waiving of interest on rate payments.

Other assistance has included an automatic six month extension on permits, streamlining planning permit assessment processes, a dedicated Economic Response Centre, working with Commerce Ballarat, to help businesses adapt, two months free parking in the CBD and a change in payment cycles from fortnightly to weekly to ensure our suppliers are paid quicker.

While most of our events for 2019/20 had been delivered before COVID-19 caused us to lock down, we've still committed to spending the same amount in the budget for new events and initiatives for 2020/21.

We are still going ahead with our planned $52 million capital works program which we believe will provide a much-needed stimulus to the local and regional economy, particularly construction industries.

This includes:

We will also spend (among many items):

One of the themes that came through strongly in the budget submissions was climate change and we are also providing $3.5 million over four years for energy efficient LED lighting and $500,000 towards a 40 per cent tree canopy across the city.

This budget is the final budget of this council term and has been structured around our Council Plan 2017-2021: Liveability, Prosperity, Sustainability and Accountability and these are the projects we are committed to completing.

There are also budget provisions for a $17 million loan, if needed, to offset the predicted revenue shortfall from closed facilities and the expected drop in rate payments.

We hope not to activate this loan but in these uncertain times it makes sense to ensure our cash flow can deliver on the capital projects we have planned.

We could have taken up the Victorian Government's offer of delaying adoption of our budget, but we wanted to present a financial blueprint that will give the community confidence as we carefully work our way through the recovery phases of COVID-19.

We felt sticking with our original budget was the most prudent way to put money back into the economy and continue with the services to our community.

We also need to look at our long-term financial plan and be realistic about the unknowns we face as a result of the pandemic.

These are uncertain times but we know this is a good budget and that we are in a very sound financial position.

- City of Ballarat Mayor Cr Ben Taylor

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