Budget planning for 2022/23 underway 

Ballarat City Council is seeking input from residents on the 2022-2023 annual budget, based on its Council Plan 2021-2025 priorities. 

A survey is now available at the City of Ballarat’s MySay page until Sunday 28 November asking residents to prioritise the Council Plan’s 46 goals and objectives to help inform the 2022/23 financial year budget. 

Residents are asked to rank the Council Plan’s six goals in order of priority, and then provide their top five priorities from its 40 strategic objectives. 

City of Ballarat Mayor, Cr Daniel Moloney said it was vital to get an idea of what the community’s priorities were before formulating the next financial year’s budget. 

“We want to know what projects and strategies our residents want us to spend their rate money on,” Cr Moloney said. 

“Rates are one of our two biggest income sources and we need to make sure we are using those funds responsibly and transparently.” 

Considerations when developing Ballarat City Council’s 2022/23 budget include: 

• Rate capping’s impact on the ability to pay increasing costs 
• The impact of a growing community and the need to provide new and upgraded roads, parks, drains and other infrastructure 
• Maintaining and renewing $2 billion worth of assets 
• Delivering the services councils are legally required to provide 
• Delivering existing services to a growing community 
• The option of borrowing money to cover costs, particularly for large projects 

Two of the largest City of Ballarat income sources are rates and Federal and State Government grants. 

Rates allow the City of Ballarat to deliver over 80 services and $130.9 million in capital works. 

This equates, for every $100 spent, to dollars allocated to: 

• $19 for roads (capital works) 
• $11 for community and open spaces (capital works) 
• $10 for lands and buildings (capital works) 
• $9 for waste 
• $8 for community services 
• $8 for governance and corporate services 
• $7 for parks and recreation 
• $7 for other infrastructure (capital works) 
• $4 for attractions and events 
• $4 for maintaining roads 
• $4 for planning and development 
• $3 for family and children’s services 
• $3 for maintaining facilities 
• $3 for plant and equipment (capital works) 

To have your say, or to find out more, go to the MySay page mysay.ballarat.vic.gov.au/budget-2022-2023. You can also contact our Finance Team for more information by emailing financialservices@ballarat.vic.gov.au 

After the survey closes, internal consultation and draft budget development will take place between November and March 2022. 

A draft budget is scheduled to be made available for public exhibition during May 2022.