Wagga councillors have called on the federal government to hand back close to $2 million “raided” from council coffers.
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The federal government’s freeze on Financial Assistance Grant (FAG) saw Wagga City Council miss out on about $900,000 per year, according to councillor Rod Kendall. While the new budget thawed the funding, Cr Kendall said councils were still shortchanged.
“These grants are extremely important as they cover operational parts of council to a large extent,” he said.
“Wagga was about $1.8 million worse off because of the freeze and the federal government should fix this fundamental mistake.”
But Riverina MP Michael McCormack said the freeze was needed to get the nation’s finances back in order.
“One of the ways we helped cushion the impact was trebling roads to recovery funding,” he said. “Wagga did very well out of the additional funding and you can see the roadworks that wouldn’t have been done without that funding boost.”