THE Commission of Inquiry in Ararat Rural City Council has handed its first report to Acting Victorian Local Government Minister Lily D’Ambrosio.
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The Commission of Inquiry was appointed on June 29 and was tasked with consulting the community on the council’s rating strategy and proposing a better way forward.
Council’s draft budget proposed to bring to an end all differential rates in the city, which would have increased the cities total rate revenue from farms by over 50 per cent but offered a discount to residential, commercial and industrial property owners.
There is currently no set time for when the report will be released to the public.
Ararat Rural City councillors voted in late June to delay adoption of the rating strategy and budget until it had consulted the recommendations from the inquiry’s report.
The Ararat Advertiser understands that the report’s release could be delayed for a week or more until Local Government Minister Natalie Hutchins returns to her portfolio.
Farmers within Ararat Rural City Council and the Victorian Farmers Federation have fought against the proposed rating strategy, drawing hundreds of landowners to community and council meetings.
The federation provided testimony to the inquiry that claimed farmers would be asked to shoulder an unfair percentage of the rates burden compared with their share of economic output.
The commissioners held both private and public consultations with the ratepayers of Ararat as part of their inquiry.
The minister will now consider the report’s findings and recommendations before providing it to the Council and community.
“I thank the commissioners for their hard work over the past month in producing this report into Ararat Council,” D’Ambrosio said.
“The report will now be considered prior to it being provided to the council and a decision on their budget and rating strategy.”