The City of Stirling adopted its 2019-20 budget at this week’s Council meeting, setting its rate increase at 0.9 per cent, well below the forecasted CPI of 1.75 per cent.
City of Stirling Mayor Mark Irwin said the budget would not only ensure the City was able deliver a high level of services, projects and infrastructure, but allow the City to continue to put the needs of the City’s rate payers first.
“The City and Council have worked hard to develop a budget that has a minimal financial impact on our residents and rate payers while still allowing us to continue to deliver the more than 200 services they have come to rely on, as well as a variety of programs and work on major projects,” Mayor Irwin said.
“We have been able to achieve this despite the fact that we have had to absorb increases to a number of government services, including a 2.5 per cent increase to water, 2.3 per cent increase in vehicle registrations and an up to 3.7 per cent increase to street lighting and electricity.”
The City’s budget totalling $320.9 million will see more than $82 million go toward capital works, including:
The budget also includes:
- $4.0M for rights of way
- $9.0M for parks and reserves
- $7.8M for capital building works.
Mayor Irwin said the City had once again been able to retain its debt-free status and was committed to continuing to deliver on the City’s strong financial position with low rate increases, controlled cost increases and a reduction in costs through robust procurement strategies and efficiency measures.
“Through implementing these measures and our organisational review, we have already seen a significant decrease in organisational costs, including a saving of $0.5 million on legal costs and have commenced the implementation of a new relationship management system that will vastly improve our customer experience,” he said.
“We want to make sure we continue to create and support a vibrant, connected, diverse and sustainable City and deliver on the commitments made to our community in the Strategic Community Plan and Corporate Business Plan and I believe this budget will make sure that we are able to do that.”
The budget will be available to view in full on the City’s website by the end of the week.
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