General News
19 June, 2024
Mount Isa council budget reveals the cost of recycling to ratepayers
General rates will go up 4.6 per cent, according to Mount Isa City Council's draft budget.
Mount Isa residents are facing a $200 rates increase in 2024-25 as the council looks at ways to cover inflation and soaring costs in the city.
The council will next week vote on its budget, however, any major changes from its draft document appear unlikely.
Mayor Peta MacRae said it was a tough balancing act when the council produced the budget and thanked the council staff for its work to try and cut costs and look at saving measures.
“There’s high inflation, high cost of living; we need to pay our staff – they’ve got a higher cost of living as well so they’ll also be looking for a wage rise,” she said.
“Also, the materials recycling facility was a $20 million project and we need to make the best use of that facility.
“That involves getting those yellow-top bins out and starting with the recycling.
“At the moment we’re part of the waste levy, which is essentially an extra tax that gets passed on from the state government to try and discourage us from putting waste into landfill.”
While the draft paper released by the council last week lacked some detail in key areas, North West Weekly understands the council will reduce some of the burden on residents and take aim at certain FIFO accommodation providers in the city, as well as mine sites.
“We’ve targeted intensive accommodation, and some of the larger corporate entities that operate out of out of our city,” said Cr MacRae.
“In the past, we haven’t been as aggressive as other councils when making those charges.”
The mayor said while a general rate increase of 4.6 per cent and some service increases would add extra costs to local residents, the new council was determined to try and improve the city’s amenities and spend locally wherever possible.
“It is a massive budget, and we need to consider liveability because we’re wanting to attract residents to Mount Isa,” she said.
“That means having a nice and clean place to live that we can all be proud of.
“So we need to take proactive steps and maintain our service levels. But at the same time, someone has to pay for that.
“We want to reward people that are living locally and spending their money locally.
“As a council we’re focused on spending our money locally.
“We’ve looked at our procurement processes and how we can ensure that the money council spends – if we possibly can – remains local to stay in our circular economy.”
The council is also implementing a new project management office to help streamline processes for cost saving.
“We want to make sure we are doing things as efficiently as possible and manage our projects really efficiently,” said Cr MacRae.
While ratepayers have been overwhelmingly in favour of recycling in the city, there will be some short to medium-term pain.
The cost of purchasing enough recycling bins for the city will be in excess of $700,000, while processing the material will also come at a cost.
In the budget, the council has forecast the cost of waste management to rise from $7 million in 2023-24 to $9 million in 2024-25.
Cr MacRae said she supported recycling in Mount Isa but would write to the state government to try and get the city exempt from the waste levy.
“Our long-term strategy is to get neighbouring councils like Cloncurry to send their recycling here and hopefully new business opportunities arise as a result,” she said.
“We’ve got this state-of-the-art facility but while we’ve got this waste levy hanging over our heads we won’t get those councils sending their waste here.”
The council’s draft budget for 2024-25 is $110 million, made up as follows:
Capital expenditure: $21.4 million;
Services and operating costs: $87.4 million;
Debt repayments (principal): $1.9 million.
Mount Isa City Council will pass the budget at a special meeting next Wednesday.
