Economic & Community Development

As we navigate budget constraints, we’re looking at ways we can recalibrate our funding models to best ensure money is spent where it’s most needed. One of the ways we are looking to do this is revisiting our Economic and Community Development Strategy. Let’s build the path forward together.

Council is looking at implementing operational cost cuts and reducing grant funding for our Economic and Community Development activities. This will mean an adjustment in the services we offer.

A key area we have been considering in this space is grant funding. Typically, around $400,000 per year has been allocated for community grants, often managed by groups like Community Boards and Community Committees as discretionary funding for local projects. We are looking to reduce this amount to $242,000 going forward.

Given the challenges our district is facing, especially with waters services and infrastructure, we have to make some really tough decisions on where best to allocate funds. We’ve done a lot of work looking at the impact of reducing grant funding, and this reduction has been factored into the proposed rates increase.

Here’s how it would affect some groups in our community:

Information centres won’t be affected, but discretionary funding for community boards and committees would be halved.

Community groups with existing, historic agreements, including the Main Street grants for minor improvements in our town centres, would need to apply for a smaller pool of funding through a competitive process.

This process would be in the form of a $100,000 Contestable Fund - meaning everyone, including new applicants, can apply to this one fund, and decisions are made based on the merits of each application, ensuring fairness and transparency in the allocation of funds.

This is not an easy decision to make, and we’d appreciate your input as we consider the best use of these funds moving forward.

Here are the options:

• Option One (our preferred option): Reduce the funding for the Economic and Community Development activity, including a reduction in community grant funding, and creating a contestable fund of $100,000 per year.
• Option Two: Do nothing.

More information on the options can be found in the document below.