Lismore City Council councillors voted to place the 2023/24 Draft Budget on public display which includes the 2023/27 Delivery Program, the 2023/24 Operational Plan and the Long-Term Financial Plan during an Extraordinary Council Meeting last night.

The summary shows:

• A small cashflow surplus of $205,000
• A 3.7% increase in rates next year
• Water charges will increase 5%
• Net Operating Result before Grants and Contributions provided for Capital Purposes is a loss of $12 million.

Cr Andrew Gordon said we are on a ride for recovery that is going to take some time and this will see some people unhappy.

"Yes, there's an increase across the board and we see that, but that's the reality that we live in these days. We have to pay our bills, we need to meet our obligations, we have to be able to provide the services the public expect. They don't come for free anymore and yes, I'd like to say that we could just, with the roadmap and all those sorts of ideas provide a lot more subsidy than we can."

"They've (Council finance staff) looked at it long and hard. They've come up with a roadmap for us, which creates a financial picture, which I think most people would see and deem that to be sustainable."

Making Lismore City Council 'sustainable' was the key word for most councillors with many referencing the losses year after year for the last decade or more.

Cr Guise said he has been part of budget deficits since his time on council and feels this budget is just more of the same.

"Yes, we do have a long-term financial plan. We've adopted them in the past. They tried to make us look like we're turning around the ship in, you know, 5 to 10 years out. We're supposedly going to see that but it's constantly moving deck chairs. We adopt a new CSP (Community Strategic Plan) every four years, unless you rehash an old one like we did this time round, but we're constantly moving the goalposts so the target of turning it around is forever getting further in the distance."

Cr Guise added that he is only seeing red in the next eight years and including years nine and ten despite a reporting procedure showing a profit in those years. Those deficits Cr Guise blames on cost-shifting like waste and taking back regional roads.

Cost-shifting from the NSW State Government was another term used regularly by Crs Guise, Bird and Ekins.

Cr Vanessa Ekins called this a bare-bones budget.

"I firmly believe that the answer to our problems is getting a fair share of the GST from the state government and we really need to lobby the state government for adequate resources to provide the essential services that we provide to our community. So, just bear in mind that we are a service provider. We have inadequate funding with which to do it."

"And as you'll notice here, one of our functions is not just a service provider, but it's an advocate and one of the crucial roles that we can play as a council is in lobbying state and federal government and I think we really need to go very, very hard on that, particularly for our waste resources and things like that because they're providing essential services and we can't afford to provide them."

Cr Elly Bird thought the cost shifting by the state government with the new State Emergency Levy costing LCC an extra $330,000.

Cr Peter Colby said the budget really tells a story. "I think that the answer at the end of the day is really is we know how much it costs, we know what it's going to cost, we know what increases we need to put on every operation that we do, how we increase the money, how we increase the revenue."

"But the real issue that I think is missing and it's not this documents problem, is the fact that our strategy is how we're actually going to get another 2000 houses in Lismore. How are we going to get another 50 shops and build industries in the area to start to pay and employ people and create wealth for the area."

"This is a great document that tells exactly the story every year we have to increase it to cover the costs. Every year we have to cover the capital costs. We have to cover the cost of the wages we have to cover the cost of everything. So what we do is we're not actually looking outside the square. We're looking at inside the square of how we get the money and at some stage, we're going to have to turn around and look outside the square of what we do."

Cr Big Rob battled with the necessary rate increases to improve council's financial position while at the same time wanting to keep his promise to ratepayers that they wouldn't have to pay more for rates.

"It was a promise to give some relief to our flood survivors and everyone else who helped them all around the place using all that water, increasing the usage charges and they didn't get any relief. It's only a small amount of money, it's not a lot and it seems like it's going to be the end of the world if we kept that promise next financial year, and it's probably a safer time to do it because the increase, I think, is relative increases small next financial year than this financial year."

Cr Rob was also worried about building new assets like the new CBD Skate Park and if LCC could afford the ongoing maintenance costs given the current state of the budget.

Mayor Steve Krieg said it was never easy talking about rate rises but in real terms, councillors are delivering the best outcome for our community given that inflation is running at 7.8% with fees and charges going up by around 3.7% even if it is a capped rate.

"I am like Councillor Guise in a lot of ways that things can be done even more to achieve greater outcomes and I have no doubt that when we get the basics right, then we can work on those greater outcomes into the future."

The mayor ended by saying he was interested in reading what the public submissions have to say after the 28-day period.

So, now it's up to you Lismore to have your say on next year's budget, if you wish to. It's a long document so give yourself a lot of time to read it, maybe over a day or two.

The link can be found at the Your Say Lismore tab on Council’s website www.lismore.nsw.gov.au.