The NSW State government has sprung a ‘catastrophic’ Emergency Services Levy on NSW Councils leaving them struggling to fathom how they are supposed to come up with the money that the state is demanding.
At yesterday’s Tweed Shire Council (TSC) meeting it was revealed that the TSC had received the equivalent of a $540,000 levy, a significant increase on what was expected, drawing a quick response from councillors at the ‘bizarre’ and ‘unbelievable’ levy that is putting council in an ‘untenable position’ according to Tweed Mayor Chris Cherry.
The Emergency Services Levy is a contribution paid by all councils that funds all the emergency services across that shire. The issue is that the state government has not only significantly increased the levy, they have removed the subsidy that councils were previously receiving.
‘The $540,000 represents the equivalent of a 0.85 per cent rate increase,’ explained Tweed Council’s general manager, Troy Green.
‘That represents one-third of the special rate variation (SRV) that we’ve asked for.’
The Council can not use the SRV to pay for the levy as, if approved, it would have to be spent on the areas identified in the request for the SRV.
‘Council unfortunately has received this notification outside our rating cycle. So we have not been able to factor this in,’ said Cr Cherry.
The Council had budgeted for a four per cent increase in the emergency services levy, however, the increase by the state government for the next financial year is 24.28 per cent.
‘I just found this quite unbelievable,’ said Councillor Dr Nola Fiurth.
‘We’re expected as a council to run our budget, and we’ve done a really careful job. And then to suddenly [you] have a huge amount of money that we [are] expected to find at a time when we’ve already gone to the community about the difficulties we are under. I’m absolutely astonished that something like this could happen.’
Her astonishment was reiterated by Councillor James Owen who told the meeting, ‘It’s quite bizarre.’
‘To know that a lot of councils are in the process of asking their communities whether they’re willing to accept a special rate variation, to then do this in the middle of it, it’s just not very great policymaking.’
Cost shifting
Local Government NSW says the decision to apply sky-high increases in the Emergency Services Levy would be catastrophic for many councils, and could see some become insolvent.
The point out that for some councils the unexpected cost hit would all but wipe out any IPART-approved rate rise, shredding budgets already under massive pressure from the combined impact of the pandemic, extreme weather events, high inflation and wage increases.
LGNSW President, Darriea Turley, says the ESL is an absolutely blatant cost shift by the state government. ‘To make things worse, the ESL has seen stratospheric increases year-on-year to make up for the government’s unfunded workers compensation liability.’
Reinstate subsidy
Tweed Council unanimously voted that the Mayor engage ‘ all interested Government representatives on this issue’ and that council write to:
‘• The Honourable Daniel Mookhey MLC, Treasurer
- The Honourable Jihad Dib MP Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government, Minister for Emergency Services, and Minister for Youth Justice
- The Honourable Ron Hoenig MP Minister for Local Government
- cc Federal and State Members for Tweed and Lismore
‘Requesting immediate reinstatement of the subsidy for the Emergency Services Contributions, including this year’s increase above the rate peg and to work with LGNSW on a more appropriate funding model and/or transparent and sustainable collection methodology.’
They also sought to have the Northern Rivers Joint Organisation make a similar request.
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