It might be nine months since rising floodwaters hit large parts of the City of Greater Shepparton, but the municipality is still counting the cost.
When last October’s floods inundated much of Shepparton and Mooroopna and parts in between, Greater Shepparton City Council was among those hit.
Along with residents’ homes and businesses, council assets, such as Victoria Lake Holiday Park, Riverlinks Eastbank, the BMX track and Aquamoves, were also hit.
Nine months later, council says “reinstatement works” continue, with Riverlinks Eastbank operating, albeit at partial capacity, while the holiday park is due to reopen to camping and motor homes in coming weeks.
Mayor Shane Sali said council hoped to recoup as much expenditure as possible through insurance and government assistance, but faced initial outlays because it could not wait for claims to be processed before undertaking essential works.
“The most obvious one, and I use this quite often, is Princess Park,” he said.
“We had to react ourself and get things going to support those user groups to get their sporting facilities up and running to get their programs back on track this year.
“If we were to wait for other levels of government or other support measures, it might still be in the state that it was when the water receded.”
The impact to council has not only been through the cost of damage, but also the loss of revenue to services.
The extent of that cost is yet to be fully calculated.
A council spokesperson said all eligible expenditure under council’s insurance policy was expected to be fully recouped, and the cost to council from expenditure falling under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangement was yet to be determined.
Council has received $1.5 million from the Victorian Government Council Flood Support Fund, which will go some way to reducing the financial impact of the flood to council, including on items not covered by insurance or the DRFA, such as clean-up of open spaces and repairs to the shared path network.
The municipality’s road network was also impacted by the floods, with council committing to remediation works on sealed roads at an estimated cost of $16.5 million.
The 2023/2024 capital works program budget will also see drainage projects in Lenne St, Mooroopna and the purchase of a new portable stormwater pump to reduce impacts of future flooding events, although this is contingent on funding.
The impact of the floods on council’s insurance premiums is also yet to be fully revealed.
Given the nature of council business it has a number insurance policies and the combined increase for some of those policies for 2023/24 has risen by around $9000.
Council is still waiting on the premiums for property and business interruption insurance for 2023/24, and any impact from the floods on those is currently unknown.
Cr Sali said council’s 2023/24 budget aimed to meet the needs of the municipality’s residents while also dealing with the financial impact of inflation and the floods, which had closely followed the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The flood was on top of two, almost three years of COVID and that’s not the sort of icing on the cake that you’re looking for, but we dealt with it and we’re making sure that this budget brings that deficit back, but we also have to be really versatile with this budget moving forward because of the economic climate that we’re facing,” Cr Sali said.