From 30 May 2025 to 30 June 2025 Council had invited the affected ratepayers and stakeholders to comment on the calculation of the 2025/26 CWMS Annual Service fee (as a supplementary consultation to the 2025/26 Annual Business Plan and Budget).

Thirty submissions were received at the close of the engagement period and one late submission was also received. The feedback and proposed amendments to the calculation of the 2025/26 CWMS Annual Service fee was presented to Elected Members on 15 July 2025. A copy of the Engagement Summary Report is available in the Document Library.

Mid Murray Council presently has 28 Community Wastewater Management Systems (CWMS), and is responsible for the maintenance, renewal and compliance requirements of SA Health, the Essential Services Commission of South Australia (ESCOSA), and the Local Government Act and Regulations.

An annual service fee is raised to maintain the systems. The revenue raised from this charge can only be applied to maintenance, renewal and upgrades of the specific scheme and only to those properties that have the ability to access the service are levied.

In previous years, Council has set the annual service fee based on the balance of accumulated funds (surplus/deficit) of each scheme along with the previous five (5) year’s operating costs to project the future year’s annual service fee. This fee setting did not include the recovery of internal indirect/overhead costs or the funds necessary to cover all of the future renewal of the system’s infrastructure costs, being the annual depreciation expense.

Consultation closes at 12 noon on Monday 30 June 2025. This is to enable submissions to be tabled at a Briefing Session to be held on 1 July 2025. Any submissions received after this date will not be considered at the briefing session but will be tabled for consideration at the Council meeting to be held 15 July 2025.