Background
Hume City Council is required to develop a long-term financial plan for the next 10 years to guide how the actions in the Council Plan are funded to achieve Council’s Community Vision. Our Long-Term Financial Plan will help us to plan for the Council’s ongoing financial sustainability. It will also help us to have a responsible framework that balances funding for infrastructure and services with affordable rates.
What people needed to know before starting
The sum of the expenditure that you allocate to the individual service areas will not equal the Council's overall budget expenditure. This is because part of the budget is allocated to expenditure necessary to meet legislative requirements and provide good governance, and includes internal costs such as fleet and equipment, accounting, information technology and human resources.
We’re only asking you to provide feedback on services that can be influenced:
- Road, Traffic and Transport Networks
- Community Engagement
- Economic Development
- Libraries, Arts and Culture
- Waste Management and City Appearance
- Parks, Open Space & Environment
- Community Services
- City Planning and Development
Please note: A number of Council services in the Budget Simulator generate or attract revenue via fees and charges, grants or external funding which offsets against expenditure. The Budget Simulator shows expenditure for services only, not net (expenditure minus revenue). The figures used in the Budget Simulator tool are indicative and based off Council’s 2021/2022 Draft Budget.
How the community could participate
To develop our long-term financial plan, we wanted you to have your say on what services and projects were important to you.
To make it easy and fun for you to get involved, we launched a budget simulator tool that allowed people to draft and submit a budget that highlights where they thought Council needed to focus its attention over the next decade. The budget simulator tool was open until Sunday 8 August 2021.
What we heard
Over 200 Hume community members drafted their own budget and submitted it. Overall, there was a desire to increase the budget allocated to road and traffic management, litter management and amenity, and parks and open space. Submitters from 21 of Hume's suburbs took part, many of whom left comments about why they had increased or decreased the budget for individual services. Council is now assessing all of this information and will use it to help create the Long Term Financial Plan.
Next steps
The preliminary findings from the budget simulator will be presented to the Community Panel who have been responsible for creating Hume's Community Vision. The Vision is being used to shape Hume's future. Their feedback will be reviewed and a draft Long Term Financial Plan will be created. This draft will go to the council meeting on 19 September 2021. Once the document has been endorsed it will go out for public exhibition so that people can make submissions. This page will be updated at this time.
