Draft Budget Fees & Charges 2025-26

As part of Council's annual budget consultation, we invite the community to view and provide feedback on proposed fees and charges for 2025-26. It is proposed to increase many current fees and charges, on average, by 3.50 per cent for the 2025/26 financial year.

There may be some alterations to statutory fees and charges contained in the document. Statutory fees are gazetted annually by the Victorian Government. Where this occurs, the document will be updated with the new fees and charges, which will be effective at the date deemed in the published gazetted notice. At the time of going to public consultation, the 2025-26 gazetted statutory fees and charges were not released.

Introduction of a Waste Facilities Levy

Council is restructuring waste charges to better reflect service use and community benefit.

We're introducing clearer, more transparent charges — like the new Waste Facilities Levy — to reduce cross-subsidisation and ensure people pay for the services they use.

This approach helps ensure essential services are funded sustainably and fairly across the Shire.

Council’s waste services have been running at a deficit for several years. With increasing costs, including a new State Government’s EPA Waste Levy increasing by 30% from 1 July 2025, Council is reviewing how it funds waste services.

Council is proposing a new Waste Facilities Levy to ensure everyone contributes fairly to the cost of providing Resource Recovery Centres and long-term remediation of legacy landfills.

The levy will fund local waste infrastructure, not household kerbside waste collections.

Kerbside bin charges will reduce (as they no longer cover landfill and Resource Recovery Centres), but there will be a net overall increase in waste costs when the Waste Facilities Levy is applied.

Council engaged with the community via a Rates and Waste roundtable where a group of people that geographically represent the community and waste service users discussed how the waste services should be funded. The roundtable agreed with the hybrid model of revenue collection that balances user-pays principles with community-wide contributions for shared infrastructure and services. Where services are used by individuals or households (like kerbside collection) user-pays charges apply. Where services benefit the whole community (like street cleaning and public bin collection) shared contributions are used.

Have Your Say

We are continuing to consult with the community to understand what fairness means to you. These changes reflect strong support for user-pays where appropriate, shared contributions for public services, and clear, itemised charges so you can see where your money goes.

Now is the opportunity for you to have your say.