Weddin Shire Council have discussed the findings of the LGNSW Cost Shifting report for the 2023/2024 financial year with Councillor Paul best saying it is an issue that Council have to deal with.
"It's something that affects our bottom line," he said.
Cr Best said the report highlights something they've known which goes back many years, with the former general manager Glenn Carrol talking about how cost shifting had such a big effect on them.
The report gives people an idea of how much money is being shifted from things that were initially paid for by taxes to now being paid by rates, Cr Best said.
This not a low figure, Cr Best said, with it nationally being up to $1.3 billion shifted onto the council level from higher levels of government,
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"That has a direct effect on how much money we have to spend on things like our roads, our libraries, our parks and all our other issues and all the other things that we spend money on," he said.
Cr Best said it something they have to keep advocating for and have to keep going back to say they can't keep shifting these costs and responsibilities on to councils to pay for, especially rural councils.
"It's to continue down that path," he said.
Cr Best encouraged community members to look up the report which is on Council's website and see how much money is involved that is no longer being dealt with by the state or federal government and now dealt with at the local level.
Councillor Jeanne Montgomery said having read the report it basically sums it up that everyone is paying a hidden tax of $500 a year.
Councillor Wezley Makin said when the public sit down and think about how much they pay in rates, that $500 is between a half or a third of council rates that they pay.
This is going towards things the state or federal government should be paying for, Cr Makin said, not the local government.
" It is at the real core of financial sustainability of our council," Cr Best said.
Cr Best said it is the heart of it that they keep taking on these responsibilities such as the levies they pay out for the RFS among others.
He did not that other councils are in the same boat and that they need to get those letters out to the ministers and say they just can't be sustainable while this is happening.
Council voted in facour of noting the findings of the LGNSW Cost shifting report, placing a copy of the report on Council’s website and writing to the Premier, the NSW Treasurer and the NSW Minister for Local Government seeking that they urgently address these costs through a combination of regulatory reform and appropriate funding.
