Brisbane council is implementing a savings drive to slash spending. Photo: Brisbane City Council.
Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has announced that, effective immediately, Brisbane City Council (BCC) will implement a savings drive and slash spending by 10 per cent for the current financial year.
Cr Schrinner said that while the BCC was able to successfully navigate the impacts of the pandemic and the devastating floods in early 2022, the global inflation crisis was having an impact on projects and services.
He said the cuts would be implemented as an alternative to increasing costs being passed on to the city’s 1.2 million residents in the form of higher rates.
“Households across Brisbane are tightening their belts because of rising costs and governments like ours are facing the same challenges,” he said. “Just like many households, we’re making the responsible decision to reduce council spending by 10 per cent to avoid driving up costs for residents.
“Other governments might be happy to take the easy route to just keep spending and force up costs but our council team is not prepared to do that during a cost-of-living crisis. We’re being upfront about this tough decision but make no apology for prioritising keeping costs down for households.
“We need to take this action now to make sure we’re keeping downward pressure on future rates. If we don’t do this now … it’s the residents who would end up paying down the track and I don’t want to see that happen.
“We’re going to take the time now to go through the entire council budget to look for savings.”
Speaking on ABC Radio, Cr Schrinner said the cost of “pretty much everything we’re doing” continued to increase.
“Whether it’s basic things like fuel, electricity, bitumen, construction costs, everything is going up, and there’s no sign that it’s starting to come back down again,” he said.
The decision to make the cuts was prompted by the BCC’s Establishment and Coordination Committee – more commonly called the Civic Cabinet – after increasing fuel, construction and estimated projects cost increases were highlighted.
Effective immediately, travel, advertising, councillor ward budgets and paid consultants will be cut by 10 percent. The cuts will not affect rubbish collection nor result in forced staff redundancies, but there will likely be reduced spending on contractors.
The Green Bridge plan to build five new bridges over the Brisbane River at an original cost to the BCC of $550 million is also under review after cost increases on two of the bridges at Kangaroo Point and Breakfast Creek. There will also be a delays to the Toowong to West End bridge project and the upgrade to the Victoria Bridge.
The public art component of the Brisbane Metro line will also be cut.
The Civic Cabinet chair for finance Fiona Cunningham said the savings would be highlighted in the BCC’s next and subsequent quarterly budget reviews.
“The global inflation crisis continues to have significant impacts on the cost of the projects we deliver,” she said. “Any decision to just keep spending in these circumstances would be irresponsible and result in significant future rate rises for Brisbane households and our team is not prepared to do that.
“While some proposed projects may be paused, the majority will be delivered on time however council officers will be working hard over coming months to de-scope and remove unnecessary costs.”
