WHILE there are a lot of exciting, worthwhile projects in the draft 2019-20 budget, one councillor feels the city needs to cut back on its spending to clear a hefty $92 million to-do list.
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Bathurst Regional Council's asset maintenance backlog, which covers areas like buildings, roads and sewer, amounts to $92,266,000 and could see rates increased to help clear it.
In his budget report, director of Corporate Services and Finance, Aaron Jones put the option forward.
"The magnitude of the backlog remains a concern to council, which may look to an increase in the rate peg in future years," he said.
"A special rate variation needs to be considered in budget deliberations for the 2020-21 year.
"Any such decision will be subject to future discussions with the community regarding service levels and a review of council's operations over the ensuing future."
Cr Ian North said he didn't want to see rates increase, but it would be the only option if council didn't start redirecting some of its funds from cultural and sporting projects to infrastructure.
"We've done a lot of wonderful things over the last 16 years I've been on council, but maybe we need to concentrate really hard on this backlog," he said.
He noted that the roads, bridges and foothpaths component of the assets maintenance backlog alone was more than $60 million.
"I've been saying it for ages that the infrastructure isn't up to date and a lot of people haven't taken an interest in what that means," he said.
Cr North felt that the draft 2019-20 budget wouldn't be altered much when it returned to council for determination, so attention had to be focused on future budgets.
While some projects are tied to external grant funding and need to be completed in a certain time frame, there are others that could be put on the back-burner to generate money for infrastructure.
"Ones that aren't tied or it's only a low figure, maybe we need to say 'Park that for 12 months and do it next year'," Cr North said.
He also said that when it comes to planning for the 2020-21 financial year, discussions should be held as early as Christmas to ensure infrastructure is prioritised.
"We actually need to back infrastructure and I think the next council needs to be one that focuses on infrastructure for the next four years," Cr North said.
"We can still do minor cultural things, but our big ticket items must be infrastructure."
The 2019-20 draft budget has been put on public exhibition.
Members of the public are invited to give feedback on the document, with submissions to be accepted until June 4.
The budget can be viewed on council's website.
