{"id":3149,"date":"2019-06-27T09:11:54","date_gmt":"2019-06-27T09:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=3149"},"modified":"2019-06-27T09:11:54","modified_gmt":"2019-06-27T09:11:54","slug":"green-tick-for-new-city-budget-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2019\/06\/27\/green-tick-for-new-city-budget-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Green tick for new city budget"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"inner-head\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"inner-desc\">\nCity of Newcastle will invest $32 million into sustainable waste measures and deliver major infrastructure projects, cultural facilities and workforce development under a new budget adopted by Council tonight.<br \/>\nDelivering a $12 million surplus, the $297 million City budget features a strong focus on environmental outcomes via a $12.35 million organics recycling facility that will divert thousands of tonnes of waste from landfill and save ratepayers an estimated $5.5m in state levies over the next six years.<br \/>\nThe 2019-20 budget also sees the City \u2018balancing the books\u2019 by not relying on reserve funds for any services or works projects, as adequate revenue is generated.<br \/>\n\u201cThe adoption of tonight\u2019s budget formalises a sustainable financial blueprint for the next 12 months and beyond,\u201d the Lord Mayor said.<br \/>\n\u201cIt offers significant investment in major sustainability projects, while still delivering essential projects and services that the community expects from local government.<br \/>\n\u201cForty per cent of our $81 million works budget is committed to environmental initiatives, including new waste facilities, improvements to recreational parks and continued coastal revitalisation.<br \/>\n\u201cOur budget includes a $32 million investment in the expansion of the Summerhill Waste Management Centre, including the organics facility and a $6 million resource recovery centre which allow the City to generate new income from the sale of organic and other recycled materials.\u201d<br \/>\nOther highlights of the newly adopted budget include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$21.6 million investment in City parks and recreation,<\/li>\n<li>$14.8 million on cultural facilities ($2.3 million on Newcastle Art Gallery, $2.3 million on Newcastle Museum, $8 million on Civic Theatre)<\/li>\n<li>$13.8 million on road infrastructures projects; and<\/li>\n<li>$10 million in library services and upgrades<\/li>\n<li>$5 million towards replacing outdated fleet<\/li>\n<li>$2.5 million on graduate apprentice and trainee recruitment.<\/li>\n<li>$2 million on Smart City projects<\/li>\n<li>$1.5 million towards improving development application processing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Lord Mayor said the 2019-20 budget was a strong indicator of the City\u2019s sound financial position.<br \/>\n\u201cFinancial sustainability is one of the foundations of good government and this budget will guide our revenue and expenditure balance over the next 12 months to help maintain our strong financial position,\u201d Cr Nelmes said.<br \/>\n\u201cThe income and spending outlined in this budget will allow us to deliver the many essential services expected of the city as well as helping to deliver improvements to many areas of business.<br \/>\n\u201cDelivering a surplus that equates to 3.9 per cent of our forecast income of $309 million ensures that we have the required financial flexibility to address unforeseen events, such as natural disasters.<br \/>\nTwenty-four submissions were made on 32 different matters in the draft 2019-20 Our Budget and draft 2019-20 Fees and Charges Register.\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>City of Newcastle will invest $32 million into sustainable waste measures and deliver major infrastructure projects, cultural facilities and workforce development under a new budget adopted by Council tonight. Delivering a $12 million surplus, the $297 million City budget features a strong focus on environmental outcomes via a $12.35 million organics recycling facility that will &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2019\/06\/27\/green-tick-for-new-city-budget-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Green tick for new city budget&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newcastle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}