Nillumbik Shire Council will join an advocacy campaign to lobby the Federal Government to restore the indexation of Financial Assistance Grants after this year’s grant fell by $125,663 (3.7 percent) from last year.
At this week’s Council Meeting, Nillumbik agreed to support the campaign being led by the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) and the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV), which aims to restore the indexation of grants. In its 2014 budget, the Federal Government announced it would freeze the indexation of Financial Assistant Grants to local government for three years.
Nillumbik Shire Mayor, Cr Helen Coleman, said this decision shifted the cost to the local government sector with the ALGA estimating the decision will reduce funding to local government by $925 million by 2017-2018.
“This is another financial blow for Council and comes at a time when we are already planning for a cap on rate increases in 2016-2017.
“Cost shifting from other levels of government back to council has a cumulative negative effect on our budget and we have no choice but to pass those costs onto our ratepayers.
“Nillumbik will happily be a part of the advocacy campaign to restore the indexation of Financial Assistance Grants and one of the first things we will do is write to the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, the Hon Warren Truss, urging the restoring of indexation.”
Council budged to receive a Financial Assistance Grant of $3,333,849 in 2015-2016, but will actually receive $3,208,186.
Council will address the $125,663 shortfall against the budget as part of the mid-year financial review and report back to Council in December.
