Financial sustainability for local government refers to the ability of Council to maintain financial capital (that is availability of cash) and infrastructure capital (being roads, bridges, buildings etc) over the long term. Council needs to demonstrate capability over the long term to generate sufficient cash to provide acceptable services to the community, replace/renew existing assets as needed and provide new assets to meet the demands of growth.

In past years Council has consistently delivered balanced budgets. However, increasing costs have meant that Council has had to draw on the city’s financial reserves to achieve this result. The reality is, an operating deficit will continue to increase in years to come unless changes can be made.

Current climatic, economic and legislative conditions – such as record high inflation, recent flooding and COVID-19, rate pegging and cost shifting from other levels of government – have restricted Council’s ability to meet existing and emerging community priorities from current income. Council has made significant savings and improvements across its operations in recent years. While these savings are significant, we are still unable to keep pace with rising costs. Although Council is committed to achieving efficiencies wherever possible, the practice of identifying one-off savings to balance budgets is unsustainable, and continuing this practice would impact heavily on Council’s delivery of services. A more coordinated approach is required. These financial pressures mean that we need to work with the community to look at our sources of income and identify what services people value and want to see funded in future years.

IPART are NSW's independent pricing regulator for energy, water, transport and local government.

Learn more about IPART here.

For Special variation applications they assess:

• Community engagement
• Impact on ratepayers
• Productivity
• Need

They will also seek submissions from the community to help in their determination.

A special rate variation is an approved permanent or temporary increase to rates above the Local Government rate peg which is set annually by IPART. Special rate variation applications to IPART are often made to develop or maintain essential community services or projects. Dubbo Regional Council are undertaking a Financial Sustainability Review to gain insight to financial challenges and options to address these challenges. Essentially this is exploring what a potential special rate variation, or no special rate variation, would mean for future delivery of services and renewal of community assets.

The Financial Sustainability Review is expected to be presented to a future meeting of Council. Following Council’s consideration of the report a community engagement program will be undertaken to share outcomes and gain valuable community input.

Your rates explained helps show how every $100 you pay in rates and annual charges are spent across:

• Roads, transport, drainage & flooding
• Water supply
• Sewer supply
• Parks, sports fields & open space
• Business & Economic Development
• Community buildings, services, libraries art & culture
• Administrative support services
• Solid waste management
• Planning, building, compliance & emergency management
• Customer service, community engagement, communications and civic services.