Building infrastructure, helping pensioners and maintaining liveability are the focus in Noosa Council’s ‘back to basics’ budget for 2023-24.
Mayor Clare Stewart says the budget puts residents first while maintaining fundamental services to the community.
“We have taken a sensible approach to our spending. For most property owners rates increases are below CPI while dealing with the increasing costs of building new infrastructure and maintaining services,” she said.
The average residential ratepayer faces a 5.5 per cent increase on their total rates notice – equivalent to an extra $1.72 per week.
But 4000 property owners will have a drop in their total rates bill because of the mechanisms implemented to combat the unprecedented land valuations.
“We have worked extremely hard to mitigate the extraordinary land valuation increases – which averaged a 62.5 per cent increase across the shire – as well as ease the burden on ratepayers as much as possible,” she said.
Nearly 5000 pensioners have been given a helping hand, with all eligible pensioners now receiving the full rebate of $230 per year, whether they are single or a couple.
“We know pensioners have been hit hard by the cost-of-living pressures so all councillors were unanimous about making the rebate more equitable for all eligible pensioners,” Cr Stewart said.
There’s also been a freeze on levies. The Environment, Sustainable Transport, Heritage and Bushfire Resilience and Recovery levies each remain at last year’s amounts.
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Cr Stewart said councillors should be commended for delivering a budget that is financially responsible in the current economic climate.
“It’s been the toughest budget faced by this council as we continue to deliver an $80 million flood recovery program (and) deal with inflationary pressures and massive land valuation increases for the second successive year,” she said.
Cr Stewart said council wasn’t immune to current inflationary conditions, construction cost rises – which had increased by as much as 30 per cent – and added utility charges.
“Like all households and businesses, we also deal with these rising costs and this budget represents responsible decision making in extremely challenging economic times,” she said.
The budget also responds to the newly adopted Corporate Plan, delivering a number of key initiatives in year one such as progressing the Destination Management Plan, starting the Reconciliation Action Plan and continuing to advocate and secure funding partnerships to implement the Housing Action Plan.
An investment of $39.4 million is for capital works.
Almost a third of the funds will be spent on the road and transport network and a further $6 million to replace or upgrade bridges.
“This budget has a focus of improving our liveability, prosperity and continuing to support the preservation of our natural environment,” Cr Stewart said.
“We have put our residents first and this budget strikes a balance between investing in our future and living within our means.”
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