TRC Budget Adopted
Tablelands Regional Council’s annual budget and operational plan were adopted at today’s Ordinary Council Meeting, and both the Mayor and CEO spoke of the importance of planning for the future when developing this budget.
‘Our beautiful Tablelands Region is one of the most liveable areas of Queensland with a population of almost 28,000 dispersed over 11,500km2,’ said Mayor Rod Marti during his budget speech.
‘We are mainly an urban population spread across a number of communities and our farmers play an integral role in our community, not only by growing crops and raising livestock, but also by offering employment opportunities around the maintenance, picking and processing of these crops.
‘Many commercial businesses also support our farmers.
‘There has been significant migration to the region over the last 10 years with people moving here, often from large cities, due to the lifestyle the region offers and the many recreational activities.
‘Our region is increasingly seen as an ideal tourist destination due to its many attractions, as well as being a gateway to the Savannah and Gulf regions of Queensland.
‘We continue to experience strong economic growth.
‘Our iconic and diverse primary industry sector, our health and wellbeing sector, our construction, our tourism, our mining, our hospitality and our retail sectors are all performing strongly, and our unemployment rates are relatively low.
‘Like our region’s citizens, families and businesses, TRC has been impacted by the significant growth in costs since the advent of Covid.
‘These cost increases are not limited to daily expenditure, but also to the cost of upgrading and replacing our infrastructure.
‘In this regard we are not unlike other local governments.
‘You will have noticed these increases, for example, if you are building a house, undertaking renovations, buying cement or paint or having your car serviced.
‘Like other Councils we will need to replace ageing water and sewerage infrastructure over the next few years.
‘Water and sewerage infrastructure is the ‘invisible infrastructure’.
‘You might notice road conditions, but most people don’t reflect on the conditions of water and sewerage infrastructure until it fails.
‘We have worked hard over the last few years to extend the life of our water and sewerage infrastructure but the capacity to extend the life of Atherton and Yungaburra’s sewerage treatment plants is extremely limited and replacement assets must be constructed over the next few years.
‘We also need to find a long-term solution for Atherton’s water supply.
‘We first started investigating the replacement of the Atherton Sewerage Treatment Plant in 2018–19, with the cost being around $10.5M.
‘In 2023–24 the cost had reached $30 M and, today, our best estimate is $66M.
‘Yungaburra’s sewerage upgrade is also around the corner and this is estimated at $33M.
‘This kind of infrastructure is intergenerational so funding it requires an intergenerational financial plan.
‘It is within this context that Council has framed its 2025–26 budget, which comprises $94M in operating expenditure and $48M in capital expenditure.
‘Our surplus is expected to be $14k.
‘It’s this Council’s largest budget to date.
‘After many weeks working with all Councillors to place us in a fully informed position, the CEO and Finance Manager have put responsible budget and capital works reports to Council to consider and decide on.
‘Importantly it has been informed with external expert financial and strategic advice.
‘This budget places our destiny back in our hands so that, if we do not receive the government grants we’re applying for, we can fund this essential infrastructure through our cash and borrowing.
‘Today’s budget makes measured and responsible increases in rates and charges to ensure our continued capacity to provide core services, as well as enable us to fund critical infrastructure that will need to be financed by a mix of Council cash reserves, borrowings and, hopefully, government grant funding.
‘The Department of Resources delivered its last valuation review in March 2023 that positively impacted almost every land holding as they saw the value of their asset grow.
‘For rating purposes we averaged this valuation and adjusted rate charges for a transition path to the full valuation, ensuring we only collected the revenue needed.
‘This transition is now complete, meaning rates will now be calculated using the full property value determined in 2023 while continuing to ensure we only collect the revenue needed,’ said Mayor Marti.
When speaking about capital expenditure, the Mayor referenced the support of $18M in state and federal funding.
‘Our capital budget has $14.7M for roads, bridges, footpaths and drains; $10.5M on road repairs due to flooding; $7.1M on parks, gardens and precincts; $5.4M on sewerage works, $4.5m on water improvements; and $2.6M on community buildings and amenities.
‘The Millaa Millaa Falls Precinct Improvement Plan will continue this year and $1.4M has been allocated for planned infrastructure upgrades, $850k for Herberton’s Battery Park and $500k for the finalisation of the Ravenshoe Water Treatment Plant.
‘The Malanda area will see the completion of upgrades that provide future water security with the Johnstone River/Peeramon pipeline and 3.19ML reservoir.
‘We will also commence planning for the Atherton Sewerage Treatment Plant replacement and start considering our options for Atherton’s water supply, and $898k has been allocated to commence this work.
‘The public space investment in Priors Creek Parklands is well advanced and we expect to have a partial opening later this year.
‘We will continue to seek grant funding for key components like the multi-purpose playground, amphitheatre roof and footbridge/cycleway over Priors Creek.
‘The parklands will become the critical CBD hub for the Atherton Forest Mountain Bike Park, and I acknowledge the support of the Queensland Government in providing grant funding for the project.
‘At the same time we are working on commercial development opportunities by seeking private investment in hospitality venues, short-stay tourism accommodation and inner city living.
‘This will help meet the demand for more housing in our region and provide high-quality tourism accommodation.
‘It will have benefits across the entire region, supporting increased visitation to attractions like Herberton’s highly valued village, mining and rail tourism assets,’ said Mayor Marti.
The $94M operational budget maintains a large array of service including maintaining almost 2000km of roads, mowing than 7000ha of land, doing more than 3,400 barbecue cleans, responding to over 18,000 customer requests, collecting 7000t of waste, and delivering over 2,800,000kL of water and providing and staffing libraries and other services
‘There is $22.8M for roads and bridges; $12.6M for water; $9.9M for community and corporate facilities; $9.3M for waste; $6.8M for wastewater; $4.3M for parks, gardens and precincts; and $2.4M for community events and tourism,’ said the Mayor.
‘Our CEO has been tasked with finding operational savings and will undertake internal reviews of the services we offer, how we procure with the aim of reducing costs, and how we manage projects so that we can achieve better outcomes.
‘Our leases and licenses will be included in the reviews to ensure we aren’t committing to a higher level of support than our ratepayers can sustain.
‘Today’s budget has already made a start with a minimum of $3M in operational savings.
When referencing borrowings, Mayor Marti spoke of the current borrowings of $22.5M, of which $10.6M is funding for the Ravenshoe and Millstream water reservoir, treatment plant and pipeline, and $7.9M is for the Johnstone River/Peeramon water infrastructure upgrade.
TRC’s budget has an average increase in rates revenue of 7.9% and Mayor Marti said it doesn’t mean all rates will increase by this much.
‘Some rates will reduce, some will stay the same and some will increase.
‘Like last year, rate variations across rating categories are a mixed bag largely because we have now reached the last step to get to the full land valuations issued in 2023.
‘This increase in rates revenue strikes a balance between what we need to enable investment and borrowing for critical assets, and the daily pressures to meet rising costs of doing business.
‘A further 1% revenue increase is budgeted within rates and charges that reflects our region’s continued growth.
‘The average increase to residential general rates, which represents 85% of rateable properties, is $2.71 per week or $70.42 per rate notice.
‘As we undertake and proceeds with water and sewerage upgrades, there is a heightened need for water and sewerage users to contribute to maintaining and renewing these critical assets.
‘The water access charge will increase by 9.06% or $29.50 per rate notice, while the water consumption charge will increase by 33c/1000 litres.
‘Sewerage utilities have increased by 9.9% or $48 per rate notice.
‘The importance of an ongoing focus and investment in our water and sewerage assets is critical as we look to the future.
‘This budget is setting us up to build critical assets and control our destiny — we’re proposing a balanced budget to build tomorrow.
‘I thank my fellow Councillors for their contribution to this budget.
‘Delivering a local government budget of any size is big enough, but to deliver a particularly challenging one that is firmly focussed on the future, is hard.
‘I’d also like to acknowledge the financial brains trust within Council, the Senior Management Team and in particular the Manager Finance and the Finance Team for the effort they made in constructing the budget over many months.
‘I’d also like to acknowledge our CEO for bringing her clinical leadership, strong oversight and guidance of the very significant budget process.
‘We certainly couldn’t have got here without their enormous effort, dedication and professionalism.
In echoing Mayor Rod Marti’s messages, CEO Dr Nikola Stepanov spoke of the robust budget development process.
‘Among the most important responsibilities, if not the most important responsibility, of a local government CEO is ensuring a local government is financially sustainable.
‘Section 104(2) of the Local Government Act 2009 states that a local government is financially sustainable if it is able to maintain its financial capital and infrastructure capital over the long-term.
‘That is, that we have adequate cash to meet our needs including for emergencies and are we able to maintain our assets in a fit-for-purpose state.
‘This includes the replacement and upgrade of assets including treatment plants, buildings, roads and parks.
‘In this regard, I must manage the local government prudently and work with staff and elected officials to achieve this including preparing the budget for adoption by Council.
‘This year is our most challenging budget yet as we bring a forecast 10-year Capital Works Program of $530M in today’s dollars onto our 10-year Long Term Financial Plan.
‘There is a need to squarely address our challenges, and this budget is the necessary first step to ensuring that, as a service and infrastructure intensive business, we have made the necessarily tough decisions to position ourselves to meet this significant financial challenge, and to ensure a sustainable future for our local government area.
‘In preparing the budget, our key focus was on improving our financial position to ensure we could demonstrate to our banker, the Queensland Treasury Corporation, that we can build sufficient cash reserves and adequate borrowing capacity to fund the delivery of this Capital Works Program.
‘Borrowing is not only necessary to partly fund this program but also to ensure intergenerational equity with costs shared by users of an asset or assets over the very long lives of these asset/s.
‘To achieve the outcomes required, the way we are managed and do business needs to change as we have a relatively small base of ratepayers and water, sewerage and waste payers in proportion to the services we provide and the almost $900M of infrastructure assets that we maintain.
‘This next financial year will be a time of change and reform with a number of initiatives to be undertaken as part of the roadmap to achieving financial sustainability.
‘All the budget materials have been informed by weeks of robust interrogation of every aspect of the budget, and operational and capitals works plans, with the benefit of external expertise by way of Neil Castles.
‘I thank Neil for the level of forensic details and financial analysis he has brought to this engagement — we have greatly benefited from your experience, knowledge and insights.
‘I also acknowledge the extraordinary work of our Finance Manager, Erica Bowden, and the work of Erica’s team and other staff for the collegiality and focus they have brought to the preparation of the budget over these past months.
‘These materials have been prepared with our Councillors’ full knowledge and involvement and their commitment to their responsibilities under section 12 of the Act has been evident through-out the process.
‘Adopting this budget is the first crucial step of the roadmap toward financial and operational sustainability for our region,’ Dr Stepanov said.