Long Term Financial Plan and Operational Plan 2024-2025

This consultation has concluded. From 30 April to 27 May 2024 Council sought community feedback on our draft plans for 2024/25 - the Operational Plan 2024/25, Fees and Charges 2024/25, and Long Term Financial Plan 2024-2034 (LTFP).

These documents outline the projects, programs and budget for 2024/25, and a longer-term financial strategy to ensure we can continue delivering quality services to the community.

The Operational Plan 2024–25 outlines:

• $39.1 million of spend across 187 projects and capital works
• An additional $2 million towards maintenance of our urban tree canopy, streetscapes, parks and ovals, to improve our outdoor areas
• Ongoing services and programs to provide a range of benefits to the community
• Plans to carry out service reviews and business improvement
• How we’ll report on progress and performance indicators

It also includes the annual Budget and Revenue Policy, which this year contains a 15% rate rise following approval in May 2024 of our application for a special rate variation by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART). The rate increase was supported by the community when consulted in 2023, to secure Council’s financial sustainability and boost our capacity to absorb future financial shocks. It ensures Council can continue providing the highly-valued services that ratepayers expect, while allocating new investment to public area maintenance and urban canopy management. Council will also put in place internal measures to increase our operational efficiency by $2 million.

The Fees and Charges 2024–25 sets out Council’s charges for services that help support the budget, while the Long Term Financial Plan (LTFP) sets out a 10-year strategy covering Council’s capacity to deliver services and maintain assets.

Following the community engagement, Council adopted the documents on 24 June 2024 - see Final Documents for the adopted documents and community engagement report.