Dubbo Council may cut services to fund Emergency Services Levy increase

"It's an unfair financial imposition," Dubbo councillor Richard Ivey said.

"Because it's been imposed so late in our budgeting cycle, there's nothing we can really do about it. If we have to pay for it, then the only way it can be paid for is through a reduction in the services that this council can provide to its community."

According to Dubbo Regional Council figures, the ending of the subsidy would mean council's contributions to the levy would increase by $616,666 in the coming financial year, bringing total spending on the levy to $1,836,094.

The increase - imposed after council publicly exhibited their budget for 2023/2024 - accounts for 42 per cent of council's expected increase in rate revenue and could lead to a budget blowout before the financial year even begins.

At a May 25 council meeting, Cr Ivey tabled a motion for council to write to the NSW government and highlight the "unfairness" of the increase and ask they reconsider.

"This has always been a cost, to some degree, levied on local governments [...] But this year the state government has increased the levy which councils have to pay," Cr Ivey said at the meeting.

"This motion is aimed at bringing to the attention of the state government the inequity of increasing the imposition on local governments of having to support the emergency services levy."

"For our own council [...] of all our rate revenue increase for this year, 42 per cent of that is being chewed up in this one increased contribution required for the emergency services levy."

The levy, which funds agencies like the Rural Fire Service and the SES, is mostly paid for as part of insurance premiums. But the state government and councils contribute 14.7 and 11.7 per cent respectively.

Hoping to find savings in their budget, the new Labor government has decided to end a controversial subsidy scheme meant to take the burden off local government, leaving the state's 128 councils to foot the bill for an additional $77 million.

Chairman of the Country Mayors Association Jamie Chaffey said, ahead of the election, the association called on all political parties to commit to a policy reform that would see the levy being removed from local government and funded by other means, like a property tax.

However their attempts were unsuccessful.

"This recent announcement clarifies why. The shifting of financial responsibilities from state to local government without commensurate compensation, cost-shifting, is nothing new," he said.

"Local government is now also being forced to show the assets of local Rural Fire Services on our books, although they are technically owned by the state government, so the depreciation becomes the responsibility of local government and is therefore further reducing the funds available to provide essential community services."

Cr Ivey's motion recommended that council call on the NSW Government to restore the subsidy, decouple the levy from the rate peg to enable councils to recover the full cost and to develop a fairer, more transparent and financially sustainable method of funding emergency services.

The motion was carried unanimously.

"Councillor Ivey is quite correct in his assertions in the motion that it is way above CPI and what we can get on the rate peg, the increase does create a financial imposition on council and the rate payers," said Cr Josh Black, speaking to the motion.

"[It will be] a real burden right at this time, $600 thousand, to find that from somewhere when we could have put it into other projects. And I do hope that once they get the letter on this that the state government reconsiders."

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