Gunnedah Shire Council decided on a Special Rate Variation (SRV) yesterday, different to the originally proposed 38.88 per cent.

A 37.67 per cent cumulative SRV over two years was chosen, however, residential, business and farmland ratepayers will be capped at 32.25 per cent (cumulative). This would be 15 per cent per year for the three categories.

The remaining balance would be sourced from mining.

The decision was to determine council’s position to make an application to IPART, along with other officer’s recommendations (read story here: All options on the table for shire’s proposed special rate variation – Gunnedah Times).

Six scenarios were tabled at yesterday’s extraordinary meeting after the decision was deferred last week to allow for an extra workshop on the matter.

There was debate from councillors between scenario four and five (read scenarios below),

It was option five that won, with the addition that “council will strive to achieve $930,000 through efficiency gains and operational savings over the three-year period 2025 to 2028 with a report to council by May 30th annually during this period”.

Council said community members will be invited to have their say on the revised SRV proposal.

 

Scenario four

Scenario four would have been a permanent 38.88 per cent cumulative SRV over three years.

This would be capped at 33.1 per cent for residential, business and farmland with mining filling the gap.

The three years would split the total SRV into 11.57 per cent for each year.

This is based on the estimated rate peg of 3.5 per cent for the 2026/27 period and 3 per cent for the 2027/28 period.

This aimed to provide some relief from the compound effect impact of the SRV for the ratepayers outside of the mining categories.

The cumulative increase to mining would be at 92 per cent over three years.

Council would however collect a lower amount of revenue if this option was approved.

The difference in the three years total would be negative $929,909.

The director’s report states, “council [would need] to identify approximately $930,000 in reduced expenditure or increased (untied) revenue (efficiency target) in the first three years to achieve the same outcome as scenario three”.

The report identified additional risks such as further cost shifting that council would potentially be unable to absorb; the possibility that no financial capacity is generated to manage growth-related infrastructure; that proposed measures to savings are not accepted by the council because of the impact on services and community and; the funding to address the backlog of infrastructure work is reduced making the conditions of the asset worse.

Scenario five

Scenario five consists of a permanent 37.67 per cent cumulative SRV over two years capped at 32.25 per cent cumulative (15 per cent per annum) for residential, business and farmland.

This aimed to spread the SRV more evenly over the two years with the mining category bridging the gap.

The total SRV for the 2025/26 financial year would be 18 per cent (4.7 per cent rate peg) and 16.67 per cent (based on an estimated 3.5 per cent rate peg).

The mining category would have a cumulative increase of 87 per cent over the two years.

The report states this scenario “would achieve a similar outcome to the SRV proposal that was consulted on once it has been implemented but the rating impacts would be higher during the two-year scenario implementation than the three-year scenario”.

 

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