Whittlesea council has joined a statewide call for the federal government to restore indexation of its assistance grants in the upcoming budget, as promised.
Federal assistance grants to councils are usually indexed annually, in line with population growth and inflation.
But the government put a freeze on indexing the grants in 2014, promising last year to restore indexation in the upcoming federal budget.
Mayor Ricky Kirkham said the decision had cost Whittlesea $1.77 million so far.
He said the grants play an important role in enabling councils to fund essential infrastructure, such as community centres and local roads.
“We rely on state and federal funding grants to help deliver more than 100 local services and maintain community infrastructure,” Cr Kirkham said.
“[Whittlesea] residents have suffered from a backlog of desperately-needed infrastructure improvements and social services for a long time.
“The freeze on indexation of the FAGs has further compounded our struggle,” he said.
The Municipal Association of Victoria is leading the push for the grants to increase in line with CPI.
MAV president and Whittlesea councillor Mary Lalios said councils are struggling to make up funding shortfalls.
“The federal government collects 79.9 per cent of all taxes, and distributes some of it back to the community … but, by freezing the grants for the past two years, it has not been redistributing it fairly.”
Cr Lalios said the MAV is calling on the government to honour its promise.
