Stats show SA's heavy slug
South Australian councils say they get the least financial support per capita from any State or Territory government in Australia.
Worse for communities according to SA's Local Government Association, the state is the only one in which grants per capita have fallen over the past decade.
SA's Centre for Economic Studies has used Australian Bureau of Statistics data to update the State grants figures which used to be published in a Commonwealth Report.
The data has been used to back claims that SA Councils are under more pressure than interstate counterparts.
LGA President Mayor Dave Burgess said that past SA Governments had argued that councils in some other states were responsible for more functions, such as water supply, so the data was not comparable.
“What we do is pretty comparable to WA Councils and they receive $253 per capita compared to $92 in SA,” Mr Burgess said.
“That's a whopping 275 per cent difference and WA comes in behind the NT at $463 and Queensland at $408.”
Mayor Burgess said the LGA was providing the data to the SA Parliamentary inquiry into rate capping.
“Does this low funding impact on the level that Council rates are charged to get the basic level of services?"”
“Of course it must,” he said.
Mayor Burgess said SA Councils worked extraordinarily hard to deliver a reasonable level of service for as low rates as possible “but we are starting with one hand tied behind our backs in terms of income from other governments”.