Snowy Monaro Regional Council is offering revised budget papers after a round of community consultation and increased grant funding. Photo: Snowy Monaro Regional Council.
Some proposed service reductions have been walked back following community consultation in the Snowy Monaro region.
Snowy Monaro Regional Council (SMRC) Mayor Chris Hanna told Region the change came after Council secured more external funding.
“We’d asked the staff to propose a budget of where the money runs out, making sure that we live within our means,” he said.
“In the four weeks since we went out to the community with that, the Federal Government released their budget.
“Part of their budget was an uplift in the Road to Recovery program [a government grant program for road infrastructure] over a five-year period.
“What that looked like for our council was a large increase in our grant funding for the roads program.”
SMRC had initially proposed discontinuing maintenance on little-used public roads and other service reductions in a draft revision to its 2022-26 Delivery Program to help balance its budget.
According to the draft plan, reduced weed spraying, closing Cooma Library on Saturdays and selling the Cooma Basketball Stadium were also proposed.
However, in the updated 2022-26 Delivery Program, road maintenance is proposed to occur on a rolling basis.
“High volume load roads will get maintained every year, certain roads will be done every two years and the minor roads that were unsealed will be done every three years or as needed,” Mr Hanna said.
“All roads will continue to get maintained.”
Increased road funding is also proposed in the revised budget for both the sealed and unsealed road network.
Additionally, the changes to the draft also include a proposal of the mobile library becoming an outreach service (rather than closed) and the Cooma Basketball Stadium being leased (rather than sold). The latter decision will be reviewed in 12 months, following consultation with user groups.
“It [the increased funding] allowed us to relook at how we deliver our services and where we can put money,” he said.
Mr Hanna said that while the extra funding was welcomed, it would not completely fix Council’s financial situation.
“This isn’t a solution [for the] long-term,” Mr Hanna said.
“This is a very short-term solution.
“I don’t know what the future looks like, but there will be some hard decisions that need to be made over the next couple of years.
“We are reviewing all our services and what that looks like.”
Mr Hanna thanked the community for its feedback.
“The community was amazing. We got just over 300 submissions, and they were all unique,” he said.
“In that feedback, there were suggestions made, and [many said] what it meant for us to not maintain roads.
“We’ve listened and we’ve also got extra funding, so we can change our operational plan.”
The updated 2022-26 Delivery Program will be discussed at an extraordinary council meeting on 27 June (Thursday) from 1 pm, which can be livestreamed via council’s website. The meeting agenda is available online.
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