At the shire's June meeting on Monday, a collection of residents gathered to argue against the proposed rate changes for residential and farming properties in the 2021-22 draft budget.

The proposed changes upset some farming residents in the region with 17 submissions made to council, five of whom presented on the day.

In the initial draft budget release, the Northern Grampians Shire Council proposed to set the farm rate differential at 50 per cent, with farm rates to increase by 10.8 per cent and residential rates to decrease by 3.7 per cent.

After assessing the submissions, Cr Kevin Erwin moved a motion to amend the draft budget to make the rate allocation "more equitable".

"I think we recognise we are working with a broken system," he said in the meeting.

"We have heard the submissions today and it is not a perfect world unfortunately, but I think this bridges the gap a little bit.

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"The state government had the review into the system last year and there were 56 recommendations made and none of which have been adopted, which makes it tricky when we are still working with this broken system that we have had for far too many years.

"Hopefully by doing this, it helps bridge the gap and make it more equitable."

Cr Erwin presented the motion with amendments to the budget, changing the farm rate differential from a proposed discount of 50 per cent to a discount of 53 per cent.

Under the amendments, the general rate would increase from 0.5573 to 0.5705 cents/CIV, with farm differential rate to decrease from 0.2786 to 0.2682.

As a result, the dollars raised under the general rate will increase from the initially proposed $8,754,000 to $8,962,000, while the farming rate will decrease from the initially proposed $5,561,000 to $5,353,000.

Each councillor shared their point of view on the issue, before the motion was passed in a vote, five-two.

Northern Grampians Mayor Murray Emerson and Rob Haswell voted against the motion.

Cr Emerson stated despite his vote against the motion, the amendments were "fair" and urged the state government to change the local government rates system.

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"We must get the state government to have a look at the rating formula," he said.

"It is broken, it has had it, it is useless and it does not fairly and equitably attribute the changes to people fairly."

In the meeting Cr Emerson said he voted against the amendments due to a number of different reasons.

"Five years ago we gave the farming community an 18 per cent increase or decrease, whichever way you want to read it from the 30's into the 50's (farm rate differential discount)," he said.

"I think that back then it wasn't fair and equitable and somewhere along the way the council needs to drag some of that back somehow.

"The unfortunate thing about dragging it back is that we are working with a legislator and a state government system that doesn't allow us to do it in any other way.

"Looking at the numbers that have been provided to us I can also see there is an imbalance and in this year it is certainly in favour of the residential people. It should be as even and as equitable as we can get it across our community."

Despite the amendments the 2021-22 draft budget, the bottom line will remain the same, with a total income of $41.2 million less operating expenditure of $42.2 million resulting in a net deficit of $1.0 million.

In the next financial year the council expects to receive $18.9 million in rates and charges with $19.1 million in grants and contributions.

Listed in the 2021-22 draft budget $15.6 million is allocated for capital works including major projects in St Arnaud and Stawell such as the Lord Nelson Sporting Facility and North Park Precinct projects.

To view more the 2021-22 draft budget in more detail, visit the Northern Grampians Shire Council website.

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