There has been a lot of talk recently about Division 1 not getting its Fair Share.
This uninformed idea has come from someone who obviously doesn’t have the knowledge or understanding of how Council budgets work and how funding gets allocated.
Council income comes mainly from General Rates & Charges. General Rates are the rate in the dollar you pay on the valuation of your property and fund activities such as Roads, Park & Gardens, Foreshores, Vector control, Animal Control, Libraries, Halls, Community infrastructure etc etc etc, to put it simply General Rates fund everything that is not a business unit of Council. Income from business units of Council is called Charges and are cost recovery with a margin built in to cover renewals and to pay a dividend back to Council.
Water & Wastewater are the biggest of Councils many business units. The Water & Wastewater business units of Council pay a dividend to Council every year, which is used to balance the General Fund to ensure we can continue to deliver the needs and wants of our communities without having to cut services or spending on infrastructure.
Division 1 has around 5000 properties in total and 2783 of these properties only pay the minimum general rate and do not have water or wastewater services, so they don’t pay any of these charges. If we as a Council didn’t balance our General Fund from the dividend paid by our business units, the General fund would run in the red to the turn of about $15 million every year. Which would mean that areas that don’t pay water & wastewater charges would not only miss out but would see a reduction in all services and infrastructure that is provided.
Over the last 8 years that I have been your Councillor for Division 1, expenditure in the Division has well and truly exceeded General Rate income collected. I have ensured that Division 1 not only gets it’s fair share but gets the infrastructure and services that the community needs and wants. All while delivering the lowest rate increases ever in the life of Bundaberg Regional Council, 1.45% average General Rate increase every year for the last 8 years, way below inflation.
𝐈 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫
𝐈 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝟏 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞
𝐕𝐎𝐓𝐄 𝟏 𝐉𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐒 “𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫”
𝘈𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘑.𝘗.𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘴, 14 𝘙𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘙𝘰𝘢𝘥, 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘑.𝘗. 𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘴 (𝘊𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘦)
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