A RENEWD focus on basic infrastructure maintenance, including greater investment in urban and rural drains and looking after the shire's parks and gardens headline council's 2022/23 budget according to Mayor Bernard Gaffney.
Council adopted the $37.2M budget on Tuesday night, which included a $16.8M capital works program and 1.75 per cent rate increase as set by the Victorian Government.
Cr Gaffney said the additional investment in drains and flood mitigation is a direct result of the community feedback received during the development of the draft budget.
"We received the highest ever amount of community input into the budget build and we heard loud and clear from our community its desire for council to get back to basics," he said.
"We're putting an additional $200,000 into improving rural and urban drains, bringing the total investment to $470,000."
The $16.8M capital works program is made up of $7.7M in new project allocations and $9.1M in projects already funded in previous years budgets, but have been carried forward into 2022/23.
A significant portion of the carry forward funds is associated with the completion of large multi–year grant–funded projects including the Chiltern Community Hub, Beechworth to Yackandandah Rail Trail and ...
