2026-27 Budget delivers healthy capital works program, $5m cost saving

2026-27 Budget delivers healthy capital works program, $5m cost saving

Published on 01 July 2026

Mildura Rural City Council's 2026-2027 Budget was endorsed by Councillors this week paving the way for a healthy $48.9 million capital works program while continuing to deliver the services our community deserves.

Highlights of the capital works program include:

• $20 million on roads projects
• $12.73 million on buildings and improvements, including construction of the Nichols Point Kindergarten
• $2.79 million on recreation, leisure and community facilities projects
• $2.49 million on drainage projects.

Mildura Mayor Ali Cupper said while the capital works program was shaped by Council's continual work to maintain, improve or establish new projects for the community, it also reflected what the community has said is important to them.

"Take roads for example, our community has told us loud and clear they want to see the condition of roads in our region improved. While many of the roads highlighted by residents are maintained by the Victorian Government, we're doing our part by injecting $20 million into Council roads over the coming 12 months," Cr Cupper said.

"Similarly, stormwater drainage came to the fore earlier this year during the major rain event. This important infrastructure is on our radar year-round, which is why we're spending almost $2.5 million on drainage projects."

Cr Cupper said this year's budget was developed during a challenging period of ever-increasing cost pressures.

"Financial sustainability has been a key driver behind this year's budget, ensuring we're able to continue delivering facilities and services for our community without passing on these cost pressures to our ratepayers," Cr Cupper said.

"The challenge has been how Council can absorb these cost-increases to avoid simply 'passing the buck' to our community, and I think this budget has largely achieved that, which is reflected in how tight this budget is, coming in at a $40,000 operating deficit.

"Cost shifting by State and Federal Governments is a prime example of these pressures, costing our community an estimated $5 million annually as we are forced to increasingly take on or pay for services previously funded by government.

"To counter this, we've found about $5 million in new and recurrent savings to avoid extra pressure on our community.

"Another smaller example is the EPA levy we need to the pay the Victorian Government for the waste our region generates. This is risen by 4% this year, but we've kept the Waste charge the same as it was last year, absorbing that cost increase."

The Mayor said this year's budget was informed by an almost unprecedented level of community input following a shift in the way the Local Government sector is conducting Community Engagement, with a focus on engaging with the community much earlier.

"In previous years, we've had as little as a one single piece of feedback to our draft budget. This year we received 173 responses to our online survey, attracted about 100 residents to three pop-up sessions and held a community workshop with 20 members of the public, all of which helped shape this year's budget," Cr Cupper said.

As Council has done ever since the Victorian Government introduced its rate cap in 2015, we have kept rate increases within, or below the rate cap, which this year is 2.75%

In real terms, taking in the impact of median property price movements over the past 12 months the 2.75% rate cap has the following impact on the various property categories in terms of the median annual rates notice:

Business properties: $31 reduction, or a 0.2% drop
Residential properties: $115 increase, or a 7% increase
Dryland farming properties: $270.61 decrease, or an 8.5% drop
Irrigated farming properties: $114 decrease, or a 6.3% drop

To view the budget visit https://www.mildura.vic.gov.au/Budget

ENDS

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