Slim budget pickings for city

WANGARATTA High School will again have to wait for its promised $11.7 million for classroom modification upgrades, with the 2024/25 State Budget overlooking the city's major public school. WHS executive principal Dave Armstrong received confirmation that the school, which more than 600 students, remains fully funded to have stage one of its masterplan designed and documented, but the money for the actual building works will not be funded yet. The money was promised before the 2022 state election, however, as time passes and the cost of goods and services rise, Mr Armstrong said he was concerned that what will be built when the tender is awarded, probably will not equal what could have been achieved several years before. The school was one of 54 schools in the previous budget to share in the $20m School Upgrades Delivery Fund to create a masterplan, however, it was announced in the budget that WHS was one of 29 to miss out on the 2024/25 capital works allocation. "It was disappointing news, but not unexpected given the recent signaling from government about the Victorian fiscal situation," Mr Armstrong said. "We're really hopeful of receiving the funding next budget because we've done a lot of great work with consultants GHD to plan for the new junior and senior school buildings. "The masterplan has been completed and we're getting towards the final schematic designs for stage one of the plans and when the money comes it will be off the shelf and out to tender immediately." Along with the building modernisation works, Mr Armstrong said some external landscaping site improvements will be carried out to focus on "the most welcoming and engaging school campus you can possibly have". "All the works are designed around increasing student enrollment which we are seeing particularly at Year 7, in our mainstream program, but also our Select Entry Accelerated Learning (SEAL) enrollments, already high for 2025. Beechworth Secondary College was one of the 25 successful schools to receive infrastructure funding - it was granted $6.4m for a new hospitality building and classroom. Ovens Valley MP Tim McCurdy said funding one school in the region and not the other creates a two-class society in Wangaratta. "You always have to keep investing in public education and you don't want the kids at the high school in substandard conditions," he said. "People have choices of schools but when people can't afford other schools you want to make sure they have the same opportunities as everybody else. "We knew it was going to be a tight budget but we're disappointed to see that the high school's redevelopment of $11.7m has been put on hold, and this hurts." The lack of direct funding for the Rural City of Wangaratta in the 2024/25 state budget is highlighted in the regional versus city population funding ratios that are out of kilter, according to Mr McCurdy. With Victoria's population made up of 25 per cent of regional residents, Mr McCurdy said only about 10 per cent of the budget goes to health and education, and about 12 per cent to roads. The Wangaratta-Whitfield Road is a major thoroughfare that has been in desperate need of funding for several years, but Mr McCurdy cannot see any dedicated money for this. He highlighted the potential merging of hospitals that has been on the State Government's agenda and said smaller hospitals from Cobram, Yarrawonga, Myrtleford and Bright are all going to be merged into the larger hospitals like Northeast Health and Goulburn Valley Health. "We're spending more money; it's costing us more to live and we're getting far less," he said. "The land tax is killing us up here and I'm getting about 20 phone calls or emails a day complaining about increases. "Some have a bill that used to be $800 and now it's $2500, or a $2000 bill, it's now gone to $8000, they simply can't afford it." Mayor Dean Rees views the large debt for the state as the reason for the skint budget. "It just goes to show that the massive amounts of spending over the years is now going to come back and haunt everybody in Victoria that we need to pay some debt down," Cr Rees said. "I hope they have some common sense and put some of these Transurban projects in Melbourne on hold and start to get more money back into the country areas. "It's all going into Melbourne and the plan is to make it the biggest city in the Southern Hemisphere, if not Australia. "I feel for the fact they market country areas in Victoria for people to visit and expand their horizons, but our roads are in such poor condition and we don't have any money for infrastructure." Cr Rees did not discount the support the State Government has given in recent years for infrastructure in the Rural City of Wangaratta, including the sports centre expansion, Ned Kelly Discovery Hub and the railway precinct and other streetscape programs. "This is great but we now see that the gravy train is going to stop." The Wangaratta District Specialist School's Benalla campus has received about $7m and works are expected to be completed by June 2024. An election promise for a new tech school at Wangaratta was also in the budget and this is due to be "open and operating by 2026/27". It's part of a $116 million investment across six campuses and will facilitate a work pathway, giving people the skills to gain employment for the renewed government entity, the State Electricity Commission (SEC). Continued funding for Northeast Health Wangaratta for "expanded hospital capacity, including emergency department expansion, short stay units, and inpatient beds” was mentioned. The State Government had also previously committed an undisclosed sum to assist with the Greta Road social and affordable housing project.

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