New Initiatives form the basis of the rate increase proposed by the City of Unley for 2018/19.

As I indicated in my blog post of 22 April, Council is seeking your feedback on this year’s draft annual business plan and budget. A budget of new initiatives at around CPI to achieve.

Council’s budget reflects what I believe to be a more than appropriate approach. One that balances what I believe our community is seeking for us to add to our services with a rate increase that only all but matches CPI.

As seen by the table below our proposed increase is only marginally above CPI. The increase focuses pretty much only on new initiatives. Savings made in the last few years has meant we have kept our operating budget (those ongoing regular activities) at almost the current year’s figures.

The result is the rate increase we are proposing covers only new initiatives.

In my blog post of 24 April, I highlighted the major initiatives, all of which are funded by loans. We have taken advantage of the low interest environment to fund works we had planned on doing later. These projects are shown in that blog post of 24 April.

The new initiatives that are the basis of this year’s rate rise are listed below.

New Initiatives

Here’s are the questions for you.

Are you keen to see these projects undertaken. If not which ones. If you are but you don’t like the cost impact on your personal budget which of our normal activities would you like to see removed or scaled down.

Let us know by one of the many ways I indicated in my 22 April Blog Post.