Upper Lachlan Council lodges formal submission to the NSW Local Government Grants Commission, seeking further financial modelling of the proposed new methodology and calls for the existing Financial Assistance Grants funding distribution methodology to remain in place

Key points

• Upper Lachlan Shire Council has lodged a formal submission challenging proposed changes to how the NSW Local Government Grants Commission distributes Financial Assistance Grants. The council says the draft method could cut its allocation from $7,076,569 to $3,871,794 a year.
• It argues that farmland value is a poor measure of rural ratepayers' ability to pay, and that disaster recovery funding could inflate its perceived capacity.
• The council has asked that the existing method stay in place until grants reach at least 1% of Commonwealth taxation revenue.