FINANCIALLY SUSTAINABLE

Our LTFP confirms that the full rate peg of 5.9% is the best way to achieve a balanced budget while maintaining our core services and facilities the foundation of what Maitland community expects.

Our Long Term Financial Plan (LTFP) is updated annually and outlines the financial implications of delivering Maitland +10 and our annual and multiyear objectives within our Delivery Program and Operational Plan, while providing a framework for the prioritisation and allocation of our financial resources.

The LTFP ensures that Maitland maintains financial sustainability into the future and effectively mitigates financial impacts and challenges as they occur, including population growth and the changing needs across our city.

Our community is growing at a rate of around 2.4% per annum1, bringing around 2,000 new people to the city each year. This population growth has seen around 1,000 new dwellings built each year, supported by new streets, footpaths, kerb and gutter, playgrounds and resulting in new assets to be maintained and renewed by Council over time.

While we collect funds from developers, the cap placed on these legislated contributions by State Government, has made it challenging to deliver the required infrastructure in greenfield release areas. Additionally, the amount of money that can be raised from rating revenue is also capped, meaning that more houses does not mean an equivalent amount of additional funding. This leaves a gap in covering the costs of the delivery of new assets and service demands generated by new residents.

Council will continue to engage with the community to ensure awareness and understanding of our financial challenges and consult on how we might overcome challenges in the future, including service and rating changes.

2023-24 RATE PEG INCREASE

Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) has been setting the rate peg for councils across NSW since 2010. The rate peg limits the total amount by which councils can increase their income from rates each year. The current rate peg methodology is based on changes in the average costs faced by NSW councils and each council’s population growth.

To mitigate future risks and ensure we can continue to deliver services and infrastructure spending, we remain committed to identifying opportunities for future funding and cost saving.

Efficiency Dividend

We are committed to increasing our productivity and efficiencies as we balance the challenges presented with the growth of the city. We will continue to apply an efficiency dividend to our internal budgets and support a culture of continuous improvement through our dedicated Service Review Framework to enable the identification of improvement opportunities and efficiency gains.

We commit to each year finding an efficiency dividend or reduction of $500,000.

We report the information about our productivity, service reviews and improvements via our Annual Report and the six monthly report On the Move. We also encourage a shared understanding within the community of Council’s work and challenges faced in sustainably delivering services to our growing community over time.

Grant Funding

We have worked hard over recent years to secure opportunities for grant funding for numerous capital and operational projects that enhance community wellbeing and lifestyle.

We will continue to focus on securing grant funding as we deliver identified projects throughout this Delivery Program and the 2023-24 financial year that have been enabled because of successful grant contributions from Federal and State Governments.