Mildura Rural City Councillors will this week consider the release of Council's 2025-26 Draft Budget for public feedback, outlining where ratepayer money is proposed to be spent on community services and projects, while continuing to shave costs at every opportunity within the organisation.
The $155.85 million draft budget features a healthy $41.49 million capital works program to maintain and build on the roads, buildings and other assets our community use each day, as well as more than $2 million in cost-savings.
Mildura Mayor Helen Healy said Council was acutely aware of the ever-increasing financial pressure on residents and business due to the ongoing nation-wide high cost of living ahead of the budget's release for feedback.
"If there was a theme to this year's budget, it would very much be about cost-savings and where we can do more with less without compromising on the services our community rightly deserves and expects," Cr Healy said.
More than $2 million in cost-savings have been identified in the draft budget across a broad range of areas including:
- $100,000 savings in fleet management
- $200,000 reduction in passenger fleet vehicle costs
- $230,000 savings by bringing landscape architecture work in-house.
The Mayor said these and other savings were achieved despite ever-increasing financial pressure on the local government sector, largely due to ongoing cost-shifting from Federal and State Governments.
"This has unfortunately been an ongoing trend in recent years, costing our community $5 million each year, which isn't a small amount of money we need to find in our budget," Cr Healy said.
Despite these and many other additional cost pressures, Council has been able to forecast a modest operating surplus of $69,000 without impacting on services for the community, while at the same time, cutting operating costs.
Highlights of the proposed capital works program include:
• $5.87 million on buildings and improvements including construction of the Nichols Point Early Years Hub
• $16.23 million on roads projects
• $8.71 million on drainage
• $1.70 million on recreation, leisure and community facilities.
The Mayor said while Council spending was often the subject of discussion in the community, what wasn't commonly discussed was how much of Council's expenditure went back into the region.
"There's some really interesting figures in our draft budget revealing how much Council injects back into the region through our preference to use suppliers," Cr Healy said.
"Over the past 12 months alone, Council spent $66 million on local suppliers, which isn't insignificant in terms of serving an important role as an economic driver for local business, and something I'm really proud of."
Councillors will consider releasing the 2025-26 Draft Budget for public feedback at this Thursday's Ordinary Council meeting.
