Vanessa Hall  
Editor  

SUNSHINE Coast Regional Council adopted Budget 2026-27 at a Special Meeting on June 1, with Mayor Rosanna Natoli stating the Budget contained tough decisions with a clear plan focused on community priorities and demonstrated a strong commitment to financial responsibility.

“Getting the finances right, showing strong financial stewardship, is not easy, but it is the right thing to do,” Mayor Natoli said.

Mayor Natoli said that, following clear feedback from residents, community groups and the region’s first-ever Citizens’ Panel, there was a determined resolve to make every dollar count and to grow the region with care.

The most contentious part of the budget is the 9.7 per cent rate increase, which will equate to an extra $4.26 charged per week for most owner-occupier ratepayers.

Mayor Natoli cited financial pressures across the board as a major contributor to the tough Budget.

“The cost of building anything, running services, maintaining infrastructure, paying people fairly – it has all increased in ways that were difficult to predict and impossible to avoid.

“Delivering the services our community relies on now costs almost 30 per cent more than it did four years ago.

“Construction projects have also been impacted with costings rising more than 60 per cent over that period.’’

Mayor Natoli said Council had taken a closer look at all operations to see how it could improve efficiency and deliver what is needed and, in the process, discovered discrepancies.

“Significant operating deficits were identified over the past five years. Put simply, Council had been spending beyond its means.

“We are not here to relitigate the past. We are here to fix it.”

“Our goal is a balanced budget… Rates will rise, and Council will tighten its belt,” Mayor Natoli.

Local resident Michie Pattie took to the Advertiser’s post on the Budget to express her concerns.

“Residents are being asked to absorb a 9.7 per cent increase at a time when wages have not kept pace with the real cost of living and many families are already making difficult choices just to make ends meet.”

Ms Pattie stated that many residents are “becoming fatigued” by admissions that financial pressures to be absorbed by consumers are the result of a “familiar narrative” due to unavoidable economic conditions.

“The admission that Council has operated with deficits in five of the last six budgets should not simply be accepted as an explanation for higher rates. It should prompt serious questions.”

Ms Pattie also queried if all measures had been exhausted.

“Residents are not asking for miracles; they are asking for transparency, accountability, and evidence that increasing rates will deliver measurable improvements to the community they are being asked to fund.

“Residents have every right to ask whether the current approach is delivering the outcomes they were promised.”

Taking to social media, Division 8 Councillor Taylor Bunnag made a lengthy post and stated why the fiscally tough measures were needed.

“Council for five of the past six budgets has been running deficit budgets from an operating perspective. By any measure of financial health, that is unsustainable over a prolonged period of time.

“The starting point for this coming financial year was that without a serious course correction, Council was going to have further significant deficits until at least FY28 and probably beyond if there were serious or unforeseen financial events that arose.”

Budget looks to the future  

Mayor Natoli said Council must ensure the lifestyle of our growing community is protected and enhanced as the population grows from 375,000 people to more than 509,000 by 2041.

“In just over six years, we will co-host the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The eyes of the world will turn toward us, and what they see here will matter,” Mayor Natoli said.

“But the legacy of 2032 is not built in 2032. It is shaped by budgets like this one. In the infrastructure we commit to now. In the financial discipline that ensures we arrive at that moment as a Council and a community with the capacity to seize it.’’

Want to know more about Sunshine Coast Council’s Budget 2026-27? Go to Council’s website: www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au.