Yarra City Council has lodged its submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into local government funding and services; providing local insights into how we make our community liveable, productive and sustainable.
Councils are the grassroots level of government closest to people and to places. They provide a huge array of services ranging from waste management to roads, libraries, early childhood education, immunisation, emergency management, youth services, neighbourhood centres, festivals, business and economy support, parks and recreation, and so many more. They provide free and low-cost services that are most important to vulnerable residents and community development activities and programs to strengthen social cohesion.
Local government is experiencing cost pressures that exceed inflation, cost shifting from the Victorian government in many forms and has been given 25 year housing targets by the Victorian Government that will place increasing pressure on the maintenance and renewal of assets and infrastructure so important to our community.
Yarra City Council and local government more generally is asking the Victorian Government to work more closely, in a truly collaborative partnership, to create the best outcomes for the community.
Yarra's submission to the Inquiry covers many important topics for the Victorian Government to consider including that:
- the Victorian and local governments must co-design a new Victorian State-Local Government Agreement
- like other inner-city councils, Yarra is a rapidly growing community of diverse and vulnerable people resulting in unique opportunities and challenges
- local government does have a financial sustainability problem - councils are being asked to do more with less
- a major threat to Councils' financial sustainability is its long-term ability to maintain assets and infrastructure to an adequate level – for every dollar of revenue Victorian councils collect, they manage $10 worth of physical assets
- the climate emergency is impacting local governments and their communities, especially those who are most vulnerable – we need state and federal governments to invest in climate adaption and resilience
Yarra's submission to the inquiry included 10 recommendations to the Victorian Government to ensure the long-term financial sustainability of councils and thereby their ability to support the needs of their communities.
You can read our submission to the Inquiry into local government funding and services on the Parliament of Victoria website.
