Greater Hume Council's draft budget will be put out for public comment with cuts to some spending, but even a small surplus could be at risk.
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Councillors met via Zoom to consider a draft budget and operational plan, which was passed without debate and will be placed on exhibition from Monday.
But corporate and community services director David Smith flagged uncertainty around some state government support.
"We're basing the numbers on our interpretation of the press release which sates the NSW government would be funding the increase in the emergency services levy for the 2020-2021 year," he said.
"Now we have some further fine-print, unfortunately that's not necessarily what's going to happen.
"And in fact the cost of the emergency services levy for Greater Hume Council in 2020-2021 will be approximately $78,000 more than what we paid this year.
"Which leaves us with another budget issue.
"Taking that into account, our budget will have a negative impact of $68,000 - we had built in some indexation.
"Having said that, given the uncertainty surrounding lots of issues at the moment ... I'm recommending we put the budget on display as it is, pending adjustments to the budget on emergency services and potentially other matters, to be made at the June meeting when the budget is adopted.
"We need to draw a line in the sand."
Mr Smith will bring a report about the levy to the May meeting of council and a proposal to send correspondence to the NSW government.
"[It is] very disappointing ... even as late as Monday afternoon, the Office of Local Government were putting out information the NSW government will fully-fund the increase of the emergency services levy," he said.
"And that is just not the case."
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Factors of "local, national and global" scale, including reduced return on investments, were cited as reasons for council proposing to reduce or postpone spending on some public assets and removing a community grant - which residents will have a chance to comment on.
Councillor Tony Quinn said the council and staff had done well to produce the budget.
"It showed a surplus of $37,000," he said.
"We've been very prudent going through everything and putting things aside where we could.
"But we don't know what difficulties we'll face down the track, so I think we adopt the conservative approach at present and time will tell us which way we've got to go."
