Kingston District Council, South Australia, recently expressed its appreciation to Member for Barker, Mr Tony Pasin, for federal funding support – to the tune of half a million dollars for 2019/20.
Mayor, Kay Rasheed, said, “Being a small regional council with rate revenue of just $3.9 million, we would not be able to deliver the level of services and infrastructure to our community without the support of the financial assistance grants from the Federal Government.”
The grant includes $269,000 in supplementary local road funding, which supports a key community plan theme of achieving excellence in assets and infrastructure.
“Council is committed to delivering a high-quality road network and we know this is particularly important to our rural community”.
The coastal council finds balancing the delivery of traditional community services and infrastructure with an increase in coastal and marine infrastructure expenses, is a daily battle.
In what is presenting as an emerging and on-going trend, Chief Executive Officer, Nat Traeger, said over $1million was spent in 2018/19 addressing these issues, thereby increasing pressure on Council to continue to service the needs of its community whilst dealing with environmental issues generally out of Council’s control.
Mayor Rasheed said the money was largely used to provide services at a level that met community expectations. That it was un-tied meant the funds could be used on priority expenditure, rather than a pre-determined project as is the case with many local government grants.
