By Eleanor Wilson
Local Government Minister Shaun Leane has hit back at claims the State Government is not pulling its weight when it comes to local government shared funding areas.
In a statement to Star News, Mr Leane said Casey Council had received more than $40 million funding from Local Government Victoria (LGV) since 2015 to deliver community centres, kindergartens and sporting facilities among other projects.
He said the council received an additional $1.37 million in Covid support from the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions between 2020-2022 and pointed to a recent report by the Victorian Auditor’s General Office which found councils were in sound financial position with low debt levels, despite the impact of Covid-19.
It comes after Casey Council claimed the State Government was lagging in key funding areas such as school crossings and child health immunisation programs.
Last month, The Age reported a series of cost-shifting claims by local governments, who said they were being burdened with off-loaded costs from the State Government and could no longer afford to uphold key local services such as libraries and swimming pools.
The cost shifting concerns were shared by independent advisory body, Infrastructure Victoria, which urged the State Government to invest in added funding for local councils in key growth areas, including Casey.
While City of Casey told Star News it could not determine a discernible upward or downward trend in state funding for shared projects, it revealed it does face funding challenges across some services.
Casey Council said over the last four years it had received an average of 41 per cent funding from the State Government for the provision of school crossing services.
“Over the last four years Council has received approximately 41 per cent in 2018-’19, to 38 per cent in 2019-’20, to 45 per cent in 2020-’21, to now 40 per cent in 2021-’22,” Ms Duff said.
Ms Duff also named child health services as an area of financial concern, revealing state funding for child immunisation services had not kept pace with the cost of delivering the service to a growing municipality.
“Immunisation delivered by Council as part of its child health services costs Council approximately $535,000 (2021-’22) to deliver 84 public infant immunisation sessions, targeted child catch-up programs to newly arrived residents and attending 29 secondary schools,” Ms Duff said.
“The State Government currently funds around $150,000 towards the cost of this service.”
In 2019, Casey Council wrote to the Minister for Health in an attempt to improve immunisation subsidy payments for local government immunisation programs.
In response, Mr Leane’s office said the state provided subsidies to local government for child vaccinations to ensure growth in demand could be supported.
It added the City of Casey also recently received an additional $42,000 to help improve vaccination rates among recent international arrivals, including those fleeing Afghanistan.
