Our ask: restore and expand funding programs to protect local services and support councils and communities.
Yarra Ranges Council is facing mounting financial pressure due to declining grant availability and stagnant funding programs which are exacerbated by long-term rate capping. These are impacting Council’s ability to meet rising service delivery and infrastructure costs, to maintain our extensive asset base and continue to provide the broad range of services our community expect.
There is increasing urgency to secure fair, sustainable and predictable funding solutions. We are seeking to cement the framework that supports the services we provide the community in partnership with the Victorian Government, including Maternal & Child Health, kindergarten infrastructure, youth services, school crossing supervisors and libraries.
Secure, predictable funding allows Council to maintain and renew assets, deliver essential services, plan for future growth and address the need for equitable service delivery across both our rural and urban areas.
Council and our community have worked together to develop a new Council Plan and Health and Wellbeing Strategy that have confirmed the needs of community and certainty and sustainable funding will enable to Council to plan responsibly to deliver on our community’s vision.
Measures to assist
- Reinstatement or expansion of community infrastructure funding programs such as the Growing Suburbs Fund (State).
- Exemption from Windfall Gains Tax when Council land is rezoned and sold. This tax is currently acting as a deterrent to identifying surplus land assets and considering them for sale. Council is committed to achieving maximum benefit from any sale to enable maintenance of community assets and infrastructure upgrades (State).
- Extension and indexation of emergency management resourcing to support disaster planning and recovery – Municipal Emergency Resourcing Program (State), Disaster Ready Fund (Federal).
- Restoration and indexing of Financial Assistance Grants to 1% of GDP to reflect growing community needs (Federal).
- Remove councils’ responsibility to collect the Emergency Services Volunteer Fund levy on behalf of the Victorian Government and reconsider the levy impact on rural and business ratepayers (State).
- Restoration of funding to complete the Roads for Community initiative to seal local roads, with much of the design and planning completed this could be reactivated quickly (Federal).