Over the past few years, Council’s fees and charges did not rise in line with the actual cost of living increases. This happened because inflation was unusually high and difficult to predict, and our yearly fee increases were set lower than the real rise in prices.

As a result, our fees have fallen behind by around 8.7%, which means Council now receives about $800,000 less each year than what it costs to provide the same services.

How did this happen?

To keep services financially sustainable, we now need to gradually close this gap.

Using actual CPI each year

• Instead of guessing future inflation, fees will now be adjusted using the actual CPI at 30 June, published by the Reserve Bank of Australia.
• For 2026/27, this is 2.7%.

An extra increase for Community Services and Parks

1. To start catching up on the previous years' shortfall, these fees will rise by an additional 2%.
2. This means a total increase of 4.7% for these services in 2026/27.

Hornsby Shire Council has increased the Availability Charge and the Domestic Waste Management Service Charge (DWMC) for 2026/27 by 10% to fund the roll out of a new food recycling service that commences 1 July 2027 to comply with the POEO Act Food Organics mandate by the NSW Government. Additional cost pressures from increased waste collection and processing contract costs, and historical landfill remediation costs will also be funded under the DWMC increase. The DWMC also includes the NSW Government’s Waste Levy tax of $174.20 per tonne (26-27 rate is plus CPI) on waste disposed of to landfill representing over 12% of total DWMC cost or 41% of disposal costs.