Budget Health Check
Focus on core responsibilities, collaborate with State Government, neighbouring councils and business, and listen to the people and keep rates down
Did you know that our local government rates only make up ~29% of our total budget expenditure? The difference has to be made up from other taxes and levies as well as cash and borrowings. We tend to expect our council to deliver infrastructure and services above and beyond its financial capacity. These figures present a reality check. The council, through collection of property rates and development levies, cannot directly fund everything our community wants. Gold Coast City is not an island. It is linked to the whole of South-East Queensland and Northern New South Wales. We need to clearly understand the council’s role and responsibilities. We need to coordinate and work effectively with other governments and organisations to make our council budget go further.
As your Mayor I will work strategically and collaboratively to achieve our goals and priorities:
- I will ensure that our council stays focused on the things for which local government is responsible.
- I will host 14 ‘Community Matters’ meetings each year, one in every division, plus an annual Community Think Tank with advocacy group representatives, to listen to local residents and better understand what communities really need.
- I will establish five independent expert task forces to advise the council on tackling our greatest challenges Urban Design, Transport, Sustainable Industries, Housing and City Greening.
- I will host open business forums to foster synergies between our council and local commercial sector activities. We need to create the right environment to attract investment and enable businesses to flourish.
- I will ensure that council funds are not used to provide infrastructure or services that should be funded by other government or commercial sectors.
- I will be proactive to collaborate with our neighbouring councils to ensure coordinated regional service and infrastructure delivery.
- I will forge stronger partnerships with our higher levels of government to secure their commitment to address the needs of our growing city, and a fairer share of their funding allocations.
I want to ensure excellence in delivery of core local services and infrastructure to ensure that our community thrives.
Council’s total budget is funded from various revenue sources. This table shows a breakdown of the major sources of funding for the last and current financial years.
