Tell us what is important to you! Council is developing the 2026 – 2027 Warrnambool City Budget and Annual Action Plan. Your ideas will help guide how we allocate the budget and prioritise actions for the next financial year.
Council has legislative responsibilities to deliver certain services, including local roads, animal management, food safety, emergency planning and statutory planning. These services make up a large proportion of the budget. Savings in these areas can be made by making services more efficient or modifying service levels.
Council also provides services that are part or fully funded by other levels of government such as libraries, kindergartens, supervised school crossings, maternal and child health, immunisation, family and social support and Crown land management.
Where private providers cannot deliver an important community service at the scale required, Council may step in to provide the service. This includes services like AquaZone, the Warrnambool Art Gallery and support for community sport and recreation.
With increases in service delivery costs and few options for raising more revenue, Council needs to look at how we can modify services or deliver them more efficiently to meet the budget bottom line.
This is how the 2025/2026 budget is allocated:
In 2025/2026 Council funds came from these sources:
Income and Revenue 2025- 2026 (%)
How can you be involved?
Fill in the survey at the bottom of this page to provide your ideas and priorities. Hard copies are also available at the Civic Centre. How would you allocate the budget if you were Council for a day?
Send us a written submission by 5 pm Friday 19 December 2025. Email: [email protected] or PO Box 198, 25 Liebig Street, Warrnambool Victoria 3280. Please add "Budget Submission" to the subject line.
Come to one of our Budget listening posts
- 3 – 6 pm Tuesday 25 November, Dennington Shopping Centre foyer
- 10 am - 12:30 pm Wednesday 26 November, West Warrnambool Neighbourhood House, Carolyn Cres/Pecten Avenue park
- 3 – 7:30 pm Friday 28 November Black Friday Markets – in front of Robertson's Furniture cnr Koroit and Liebig Street
- 3 – 6 pm Wednesday 3 December, Jubilee Park Woodford, near the car park
- 3 – 6 pm Thursday 4 December, the grassed area beside the Allansford Hotel
How will your feedback be used?
Your feedback and ideas will be considered by staff and Councillors when preparing the draft Budget and Annual Action Plan for 2026/2027.
What are the next steps?
In the first quarter of 2026 we will use the budget principles and your feedback to prepare a draft budget and priority actions for consideration by Council in May 2026. The draft budget will then be open for community and stakeholder feedback, before a final Budget and Annual Action Plan is approved in June 2026.
Privacy Statement
The personal information requested is being collected by Warrnambool City Council for the purpose of verifying the source of feedback for this survey. The personal information will not be disclosed to any other external party unless permitted under the Information Privacy Principles. If you wish to alter any of the personal information you have supplied to Warrnambool City Council, please contact Council via telephone 5559 4800 or email [email protected]
Survey not loading? Use this link to open it in your browser