The council budget outlines financial plans and allocations for municipal services and projects.
The Budget is largely informed by Yarra’s Council Plan 2021-25 and Community Vision 2036 – both developed in partnership with our community. In addition, we consult with the community every year when preparing our annual Budget.
We are grateful to everyone in the Yarra community who helped shape this year’s Budget. Through the Budget engagement process, we listened to our community and have responded with an exciting breadth of projects that speak directly to that feedback. Priority projects this year are split across the key pillars of our Council Plan, ensuring that social, economic and environmental needs are evenly addressed.
- Implementing the new Climate Emergency Plan with a focus on protecting communities most at risk from the impacts of climate change.
- Accelerating Yarra's Tree Planting program, rewilding parks and open spaces and renewing street garden beds to cool our city, improve biodiversity, and create habitat for native wildlife.
- Accelerating the Zero Carbon Homes and Zero Carbon Business initiatives which support residents and businesses to reduce emissions and transition to all electric.
- Electrifying Council assets, including commencing works to get Collingwood Leisure Centre and Ray Coverdale Pavilion off gas and transitioning Council’s vehicle fleet to all electric.
- Introducing the Food and Garden Organics (FOGO) service to turn food waste into compost, reduce emissions from landfill, and contribute to the circular economy.
- Expanding kindergartens to accommodate free 3 and 4-year-old kinder under the State Government’s reforms, including refurbishment and reactivation of the Atherton Gardens Kindergarten to accommodate 44 children.
- Providing empowering programs and activities for children and young people with a focus on members of culturally and linguistically diverse, at risk and hard-to-reach communities, including training and employment opportunities for young people who live in public housing.
- Supporting First Peoples’ self-determination by commencing respectful participation in treaty discussions led by the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Corporation.
- Supporting the Yarra Zero program, which brings local service providers together to provide a coordinated and compassionate response to people who are sleeping rough and experiencing homelessness.
- Partnering, supporting and providing funding for Yarra’s Neighbourhood Houses, which offer responsive, local programs designed to empower, connect, and educate individuals and groups.
- Delivering the hugely successful Leaps and Bounds Music Festival for its 12th year to support our diverse arts community and stimulate the local economy in the winter months.
- Continued support for the Learning Bank Hub connecting with the community in Victoria Street.
- Commencement of the preparation of a Nighttime Economy Strategy in partnership with surrounding Councils.
- Continued work with local trader groups and associations to market and activate our commercial precincts.
- Upgrading sporting grounds and facilities including Yambla Pavilion and Brunswick Street Oval and improving access for women and girls.
- Renewing Council’s much-loved aquatic and leisure centres at Fitzroy Swimming Pool and the Richmond and Collingwood Leisure Centres.
- Designing and delivering new parks and open spaces including through the Roads to Parks initiative, an upgrade for Charles Evans Reserve Park with a new playground, construction of the Charlotte Street Pocket Park (subject to the road discontinuance process) and a new public space on the corner of Gertrude and Brunswick Streets.
- Commemorating the anniversary of Vietnamese migration by designing and installing a permanent structure on Victoria Street, in consultation with our local Vietnamese community.
- Designing a queer memorial and place of reflection for members of our LGBTIQA+ community who have passed away.
- Improving road safety including the implementation of slow points on Miller St in Fitzroy North, upgrades to pedestrian infrastructure and key intersections and initiating the Clifton Hill Bus Interchange Priority Crossing and Lighting Upgrade.
- Improving walking and cycling safety infrastructure and encouraging uptake in sustainable and active transport with the New Deals for Walking, Cycling and Schools including an intersection upgrade at Scotchmer St and St Georges Road in Fitzroy North, the design of a bike kerb ramp from Gibdon St in Burnley to the Main Yarra Trail and more protected bike lanes and line markings on Church St in Richmond.
- Renewing critical infrastructure like roads, footpaths and kerbs along with improving drainage systems to mitigate flooding as a result of climate change.
- A deliberative engagement on the new Council Plan that will bring a representative panel of the Yarra community together to inform Council’s plans for years to come.
- Improvements to digital capability for greater efficiency and to give the community of Yarra a better customer experience when interacting with Council online.
Our teams work around the clock to deliver essential services, from waste and recycling collections to maintaining our roads, parks, and open spaces to keeping our community healthy and safe.
Like all councils in Victoria, Yarra is facing challenges to our financial sustainability from rising cost pressures, rate capping and cost-shifting, along with increasing pressure and demand on our services and infrastructure from a rapidly growing population. This means the cost of providing services exceeds what we can collect through rates.
In order to ensure we can provide services to our community now and into the future, general rates will increase by 2.75%, in line with the 2024/25 rate cap implemented by the Victorian Government. The 2.75% cap does not apply to each individual’s rates bill but rather to the total amount we are seeking to raise from rates revenue. Find out more about how your rates are calculated.
We will continue to support community members through our Financial Hardship Policy and Pensioner Rebate.
Building on last year’s Budget, we have again taken great strides towards our goal of financial sustainability, with smart investments, significant savings and careful and timely measures to reduce expenditure.
Despite significant financial challenges shared across the local government sector, including increases to the costs of delivering services and infrastructure outpacing the rate cap and cost shifting from other levels of government, we have delivered a $15.2m surplus.
This surplus will ensure we can invest in capital works for future growth, avoid unnecessary new borrowings, respond to unforeseen challenges and address the emerging needs of our community.