Kingborough Council approves 6.5 per cent rate increase for 2025-26 as budget deficit forecast

Ratepayers in a sprawling Southern Tasmanian community will be hit with significantly higher bills in the coming financial year as their local council attempts to return its budget to surplus.

Kingborough Mayor Paula Wriedt. Picture: Linda Higginson

The Kingborough Council has approved a 6.5 per cent rate increase for the coming financial year amid continuing budget deficits.

For ratepayers with homes valued at the median house price of $670,000, the increase means they will be required to pay an additional $136.70 per annum on their rates bill.

Council officers recommended that rates be hiked by 8 per cent but a successful amendment moved by Councillor Aldo Antolli at a Monday night meeting saw this reduced to 6.5 per cent, cutting the average residential rates bill by $31 compared to the original proposal.

Kingborough Council will hike its rates by 6.5 per cent in 2025-26. Picture: NewsWire / Nicholas Eagar

Kingborough has budgeted an underlying deficit of $2.2m in 2025-26 and an officers’ report noted that cash reserves were at “low levels” and the council had been “recording underlying operating deficits on a regular basis for an extended period of time”.

“Operating costs exceed operating revenue. This is not a sustainable financial practice,” the report said.

“Council has recognised this, and previous versions of council’s long-term financial plan have sought to move council to underlying operating surpluses. However, this has not been achieved.”

Kingborough Mayor Paula Wriedt was one of six councillors to support Mr Antolli’s motion, which also required the council’s CEO to make operational savings of $200,000.

“Budgeting is never simple, whether you’re managing a household budget, a business, or, in this case, serving a community,” Ms Wriedt said.

“I do feel like what we’ve tried to do in developing the 2025-26 budget is getting a responsible balance between the long-term sustainability of our finances and … not placing an unreasonable burden on our community through those rates.”

Kingborough councillor Aldo Antolli.

Mr Antolli said the council needed to be “careful” when considering rate rises and he couldn’t “stomach” the proposed 8 per cent hike but believed 6.5 per cent was a sensible compromise.

“We can’t go back to the bad old days of 2.8 per cent [increases] and set ourselves up for failure, especially when we launched into a very expensive development in Kingston Park,” he said.

Deputy Mayor Clare Glade-Wright and councillors Amanda Midgley and Flora Fox opposed the amended rate rise.

Ms Midgley said repeated operating deficits were posing a “real risk” to the long-term financial sustainability of the council.

“I believe this budget, while challenging, is balanced, responsible, and necessary,” she said.

“The modelling that we’ve seen in workshops shows an 8 per cent [rate] increase this year and another 8 per cent proposed for next year.

“If we don’t go ahead with 8 per cent now, and with council elections on the horizon, we may not see it next year either. And this has a cumulative impact.”

Originally published as Kingborough Council approves 6.5 per cent rate increase for 2025-26 as budget deficit forecast