THE Rural City of Wangaratta has a budgeted $37.14 million spend on capital works in the 2022/23 financial year, up there with previous high spending years of $32.8m in 2018/19 and 36.3m in 2019/20.
Council's budgeted capital works program dropped off in 2021/22 with $27.29m and it should be noted that a figure of $6.65m was carried over to the coming year, bolstering the program that lies ahead.
The $37.14m capital works program comes at a time there are several ongoing financial pressures for council.
Council says the rate cap also puts extra strain on its purse strings.
One might wonder why council is continuing to carry out these large infrastructure projects at a time that money is tight for council coffers and also ratepayers.
However, it should also be noted that there are no new borrowings in the draft 2022/23 budget, which was tabled last night.
With this $37.14m spend, some $18.89m is grant money from the government and this amount is being spent on tangible building projects that are expected to cater better for the needs of residents living in the rural city, but they will also attract other people to the city.
Another expansion of the Wangaratta Sports and Aquatic Centre, a council owned and run facility, is designed to meet the growing needs of the community.
And the Ned Kelly Glenrowan Heritage Project, and the King Valley Prosecco Road Masterplan are two projects that will entice more people to spend their money in the city.
Council identified these projects as key initiatives and to knock back government grants for these because of hard times could be seen as a disservice to the long–term development of the city.
