What to know ahead of Logan’s 2025 city budget

This week, on Wednesday 25 June, the City of Logan’s Budget will be voted on by Councillors.
Over the last six months, I’ve been sharing with you more information than Council ever has about the state of our Budget.
If you’ve been following me on social media, or reading my columns in MyCity Logan, you would know that the state of Council’s Budget handed down last June isn’t good.
In fact, over the last 12 months since the previous Budget was handed down, our operating surplus has evaporated.
This is because as Logan’s population booms, ticking over 400,000 residents a few weeks ago, we have faced
increasing costs to deliver the services and infrastructure our community needs for the future.
Things such as the cost of insurance, electricity, construction services and building materials have soared. For example, electricity for street lighting up $800,000.
When I explained this to the community earlier this year, you told me you wanted Council to find savings while keeping rate increases as low as possible for 2025/26.
With this feedback in mind, Councillors asked the organisation to tighten their belts by finding ways to save money and eliminate waste.
And they have: identifying $32 million in operational savings at Logan City Council.
Councillors were incredibly disciplined too, saying no over $30m of new spending.
Without this hard work – Logan ratepayers were facing a potential 23.5% increase to the bottom line of the rates notice.
The bottom line is where you look when you’re paying your rates. It is the real impact on your cost of living.
But that isn’t all that we have done for this Budget.
One of my election commitments was rates reform and this budget we’ve changed how we charge rates to make it fairer.
This will be a big change, so we’ll monitor in closely over the next few years and adjust it if needed.
As I explained in last week’s column, the Community Services charge will be removed as a fixed stand-alone charge, and instead rolled it into the general rate, meaning the owners of more than 84.5% of property owners in Logan will be better off.
We’ve had to make some hard decisions, but we’ve done that to protect the services you value the most and to improve the ones that have been falling behind.
Tune in to my Facebook page at 6:30pm on Budget night, Wednesday 25 June, where I’ll answer your questions live