Bendigo Council Reveals $143 Million Budget, Rate Rise, Expanded Workforce

Bendigo ratepayers will absorb a 2.75 per cent general rate increase from July 1, the maximum permitted under the Victorian Government's rate-capping framework, as the City of Greater Bendigo finalises its 2026-27 budget with total expenditure of approximately $312 million. That figure is up roughly 8 per cent on last year's adopted budget, driven largely by a $143 million capital works program, the largest the municipality has committed to in a single financial year.

The timing matters. Victoria's local government sector is under sustained pressure from cost-shifting by the state, deferred infrastructure backlogs from the COVID years, and a construction industry still running hot on labour costs. For a regional city of around 122,000 people, the Greater Bendigo local government area boundary stretches from Heathcote in the south to Elmore in the north, decisions made in the Lyttleton Terrace chambers this month will shape daily life for the better part of a decade.

Where the $143 Million Goes

The capital program is not evenly spread. Road renewal accounts for roughly $31 million across the network, with works scheduled on key arterials including Napier Street in North Bendigo and sections of the McIvor Highway corridor near Maiden Gully. The Bendigo Health precinct redevelopment, while primarily state-funded through a separate $630 million capital grant announced in 2024, has triggered $4.2 million in council-side contributions for streetscape upgrades on Lucan Street and associated drainage infrastructure around the Bendigo Base Hospital site.

Parks and open space gets $12.7 million, a category that includes long-awaited work at Lake Weeroona, the ornamental lake on Napier Street that draws an estimated 600,000 visits annually, where viewing platform reconstruction and path accessibility upgrades have been deferred twice since 2022. Bendigo Stadium on Hargreaves Street is budgeted for a $2.9 million mechanical and electrical overhaul after an independent audit found HVAC systems dating to the original 1995 fit-out.

Advocacy from the Bendigo Regional Arts Centre on View Street secured a $780,000 allocation for back-of-house production infrastructure, a figure the arts community had lobbied for since the venue's 2023 strategic plan identified it as critical to retaining touring productions that currently bypass Bendigo for Ballarat or Geelong.

Staffing Costs and the Workforce Equation

Employee costs sit at $118 million for the year, representing 37.8 per cent of total operating expenditure. That percentage has crept up from 34.1 per cent three years ago, reflecting both enterprise agreement wage increases averaging 3.5 per cent annually and a deliberate expansion of council's planning, compliance and digital services teams. Full-time equivalent staff numbers now stand at 1,247, up from 1,109 in 2023.

Waste services continue to run at a deficit, the domestic waste charge per residential property is $478 for 2026-27, a $23 increase, partly because the Eaglehawk landfill closure costs have been brought forward following revised EPA Victoria modelling on leachate remediation timelines. The new kerbside FOGO (food organics and garden organics) service, mandated statewide by 2030, is in its second full year of rollout and handling approximately 8,400 tonnes of material, though contamination rates remain at 14 per cent against a council target of under 10 per cent.

The municipal strategic indicator that will draw most scrutiny through the coming year is the infrastructure renewal gap, currently calculated at $1.3 million per week of accumulated backlog across sealed roads, drainage and buildings. At the current capital spend trajectory, council's own long-term financial plan projects that gap narrowing to $890,000 per week by 2029, assuming no major unfunded state obligations land in the interim.

Ratepayers wanting to interrogate the detail can access the full 2026-27 budget documents on the City of Greater Bendigo website or in hard copy at the Bendigo Library on Hargreaves Street. The next ordinary council meeting, scheduled for July 22, will include the first quarterly budget performance report for the new financial year.