00:02Construction projects, rubbish collection and road maintenance.
00:05All things carried out by local councils and all things with soaring costs.
00:10From our operations budget, we're looking at an increase of $40,000 to $50,000 a month.
00:15With diesel prices through the roof and uncertainty over bitumen supplies,
00:19Mount Barker Council says it may have to delay some of its road projects to save money.
00:24We probably can't commit longer term to those bitumen projects.
00:27We're very cognisant about starting projects that we can't commit to finishing.
00:31There's certainly a risk to any project across the board at the moment
00:35because of the rapid escalation of cost.
00:37The council says some of its projects could blow their budgets by up to 50%.
00:42But it's trying to keep residential rate hikes in line with inflation.
00:45We're looking for efficiencies to try and deliver to that strategy of maintaining CPI rather than increasing rates.
00:52Adelaide City Council is also searching for savings.
00:54We can't increase our income to cover the extra costs of everything we need to do.
00:59Town Hall's debating a 5.6% rate hike, around 2 percentage points above CPI.
01:05Nobody wants to impose unnecessary costs on any of our rate payers.
01:11But the local government association says the fuel crisis has left councils with limited options.
01:16They can either increase rates, they can decrease or change their service levels or they can even take out debt.
01:23The LGA says rubbish collection is an essential service that will not be cut back during the fuel crisis.
01:29But other services like library opening hours and facilities maintenance could be trimmed.
01:34The state's 68 councils will finalise their budgets in June.
01:39The California Review
01:39The Southland Fair
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