The NSW State Government announced a $395 million stimulus package for Local Councils yesterday.

This comprises a $250 million increase in low cost loans to kick start infrastructure projects, $32.8 million to help with the increase in the Emergency Services Levy in 2020/21 and what looks to be the most important aspect of the stimulus package, $112.5 million to support a Council Job Retention allowance of $1500 per fortnight to limit job losses in the NSW Local Government sector. A Local Council JobKeeper payment if you like.

Minister for Local Government Shelley Hancock said this comprehensive package safeguards valuable council jobs and ensures staff with a wide range of skills and experience can continue to serve their communities. 

“This funding injection enables councils to redirect funds to critical core services and deliver much-needed financial support for local communities,” Mrs Hancock said.

“Importantly, this package builds on the NSW Government’s $82 million to support 260 council-run childcare centres and $25 million for local councils to rebuild and refurbish local showgrounds, bringing our total support for the local government sector to over half a billion dollars.” More on the Showground funding on Wednesday.

On April 22, the Lismore App wrote a story about the Lismore City Council running out of money by July/August this year putting quite a few jobs at risk (Lismore City Council to run out of money, tough decisions ahead). Yesterday's announcement will safeguard these jobs for at least three months, which is the terms of the package outlined in the release.

General Manager of Lismore City Council, Shelley Oldham said "the LCC did a good job of lobbying the State Government as did Local Government NSW to get this stimulus package through. We don't know what it exactly means yet because there are no details released, it is just a heading at this stage, but we hope it means we can keep our staff employed."

Lismore MP Janelle Saffin also claimed this was good for Local Councils in NSW.

"I started lobbying the State Government in early April when I saw that Local Councils would need financial support after being left out by the Federal Governments stimulus packages", Ms Saffin said, "I don't see how the low cost loan component will help the smaller councils in NSW", she added.

"The smaller councils are pretty cash strapped anyway so adding to that debt, even low cost will not help them but I am pleased with the announcement, anything will help".

Now, we wait for the detail to be released and the Lismore City Council budget process for 2020/21 which begins this week.