NEWLY elected councillors in Albury and Wodonga are bracing for some fiscal challenges early next year if they aren’t already.
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After freely making promises about projects they would like to see come to fruition in the recent election campaigns, the reality of competing priorities has arrived early in their tenures.
The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal announced late last week NSW councils won’t be able to lift rates beyond 1.5 per cent in 2017-18 which is 0.3 per cent less than the present rates imposition.
In Victoria, councils are preparing for their second year of rate-capping after the state government struck a 2.5 per cent rise in 2016-17.
The reality is in both Albury and Wodonga there is not unlimited cash to go around and something is going to miss the cut which will inevitably upset some part of the community.
NSW councils have been dealt a predictably tough hand considering just three years ago they were given a rate peg of 3.4 per cent.
Albury Council successfully applied for special rate variation in 2011, but for some councillors the prospect of going to the same well again will be at odds with what they publicly stated in the election campaign.
The reality is they might not have any choice.
The biggest infrastructure project on Albury’s books is the fate of its two public pools and a push to build a 50-metre indoor facility at Lauren Jackson Sports Centre.
Even an estimated $200,000 for two outdoor basketball courts which won plenty of support throughout the campaign can’t be considered a certainty to be included n the 2017-18 budget.
In Wodonga, the present budget was predicated on securing $10 million in federal funding for a start on the Baranduda Fields sporting complex, but the cash didn’t materialise.
According to its own financial update for the September quarter, the council will seek a variation to the rate cap for a four-year period beginning 2017-18.
Rates are an intensely sensitive subject in Wodonga and such a scenario won’t be popular to say the least so soon after an election.
Ratepayers are looking for some respite, but the requirements of servicing a city with surging population has to be balanced into a difficult equation.