City of Nedlands finally approves 2025-26 budget of ‘responsibility and restraint’ with rates rise confirmed

The City of Nedlands finally has a budget for 2025-26 after months of turmoil and delay. The commissioners now running the troubled local government last night adopted the budget which includes a 3.8 per cent rate rise. City staff had proposed a rise of 4.8 per cent in the draft budget presented to the commissioners. “Following review, we have reduced this to 3.8 per cent, ensuring essential services and infrastructure can still be delivered while easing the burden on the rate payers of Nedlands,” chief commissioner David Caddy said. The rates drop is expected to cost about $283,000 for the city but it is expected to have a $1.38 million surplus. He said the budget was one that “balances responsibility with restraint.” It includes $9.7 million on underground power and $10.4m for capital works projects including buildings, drainage, parks and roads. Mr Caddy said a proposal to transfer the surplus to reserve accounts would be paused. “(This will) allow the proposed programs of work for the various reserves to be considered in more detail without further delaying the passage of the substantive budget and striking the rates,” he said. The budget was listed as one of the most urgent matters for the newly appointed commissioners when they took over the city on July 25. It was also part of the reason behind the mass resignations in July, when former councillor Hengameh Amiry told PerthNow they “wanted to be sure that the budget was not set by council.” A year ago, the council wrestled with what would have been a proposed 9.5 per cent rates rise, which Ms Argyle and a majority of councillors railed against despite being told by staff the tough hike was necessary to keep up with required maintenance and development projects. In demanding the rise be no more than just 3.6 per cent, the mayor quipped her council was “cutting the fat, not the muscle” out of its budget, which resulted in cutting costs to bushland maintenance and the closure of the Point Resolution Childcare in Dalkeith. The council had gotten as far as advertising a proposed 4.8 per cent rise but after a series of meetings where it couldn’t achieve a quorum, it had not deliberated the actual budget and rates rise. It wasn’t long after that when the four councillors announced their resignation, leading to Local Government Minister Hannah Beazley confirming what remained of the council would be sacked and replaced by commissioners to run the city. Meetings by the commissioners to finalise the budget faced repeated delays and setbacks, with last night’s approval coming just four days before an August 31 deadline. The budget was originally scheduled to be presented at the commissioners’ August 20 meeting but was then rescheduled. “The CEO is to present this item to the special council meeting of 25 August 2025, and the reason being is that the budget papers were not provided at this meeting as requested,” commissioner Bianca Sandri said at that meeting. The budget was then rescheduled again to last night after the commissioners said they had been presented with late information. Mr Caddy said the commissioners’ next priority would be overseeing the rollout of the city’s new business systems, which the budget said had “not been maintained at appropriate levels.” “The business systems project is essential to modernising the city’s operations and moving improving service delivery,” Mr Caddy said.