Published on Thursday, 27 August 2015 at 12:00:00 AM
The Shire of Ashburton has released their 2015/2016 budget, after careful deliberation by Council to ensure the best possible outcome for ratepayers and residents.
Shire President Kerry White says that this year’s budget has proved difficult as Council sought to balance the needs of the community against a downturn in the mining industry and some large adjustments in property valuations between towns.
“These factors required Council to carefully review a number of options in order to achieve a budget that gave fair consideration to each of the issues,” said Cr White.
One of the biggest challenges Council has had to overcome has been the difference in property valuations within the Shire. The changes in GRV Residential valuations were so dramatic that in order to minimise the impact on the householder, Council has introduced a concession for these properties that were severely affected by these valuations. This rate concession will cost Council approximately $294,200.
As a consequence of all these factors, overall, the Shire’s rating income has reduced by 3.6% to $23.5m. This reduction in revenue, whilst inflation continues to push daily costs up, has required Council to show prudence and discretion in the selection of which of the many funding requests could be accommodated in the budget.
Cr White highlighted the fact that even though the Council needs to deal with the current down-turn and associated issues, it should be balanced against the legacy of one of the largest investment cycles the Pilbara has ever known.
“Over the last few years new infrastructure has been built within our towns and commitments have been made to other works which will be constructed over the coming months and years,” said Cr White. “This is being achieved with the assistance of our many partners and our 2015/16 program of capital investment across the Shire will be a very healthy $63.9m.”
Whilst the future is very bright for Ashburton, there are still challenges that need to be faced and the review of the Shire’s Strategic Plan, and associated sub-plans, will highlight these issues.
The Council will work proactively to deal with these in a positive and equitable manner, acknowledging that some tough decisions will need to be considered, as for example, when operating costs associated with our new and much needed community facilities start to appear in our future budgets.
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