A guide for the Council budget

Published on 30 March 2026

As Loddon Shire Council develops its 2026/27 budget, ensuring that the process is robust, transparent and developed in a way that the community can understand is essential for both ratepayers and Council alike.

A new policy ensures that is exactly what happens.

Council has adopted its first Budget Management and Principles Policy, which spells out the principles and standards the annual budget will be developed to.

The creation of the budget is an essential element of Council’s coordinated planning process, ensuring that resources are properly allocated to support its ongoing programs and strategic initiatives.

Principles in the policy cover the areas of financial management, revenue, asset management and service delivery, as well as committing to monitoring and reporting and setting out when Council might revise its budget.

Loddon Shire Mayor Dan Straub said the policy would ensure ratepayers could understand why Council made the decisions it did in developing a budget.

“Openness and transparency are keys in this process and this framework sets out our reasoning clearly,” he said.

“It’s important because we are going through the budget process now, and we’d love to hear from the public on what they would like to see in it.

“We can then weigh those requests against what we’re trying to achieve both in the budget and over the longer term financially.” 

The new policy is available on the Council website and the public is invited to have its say on the upcoming 2026/27 Budget via the Connect@Loddon platform, with feedback closing on Friday, 3 April.