WYNDHAM council has slashed recurrent funding to key community groups including social welfare, housing and education providers, blaming a “tight economic environment”.
Several groups across Wynd- ham have reported that funding from council’s identified needs program had been cut by as much as 50 per cent in the proposed 2013-14 budget.
The cuts mean an outreach and early intervention program that helps 400 vulnerable residents a year is on the chopping block and some of Wyndham’s annual community events will be “significantly scaled back”.
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Council director of community development Kelly Grigsby said the latest funding round was extremely competitive.
“For many years, Wyndham City has been plugging financial holes in services which are the responsibility of state and federal governments,” she said. “This approach is unsustainable in a rapidly growing municipality.”
Wyndham Community and Education Centre chief executive Jenny Barrera said the organisation’s multicultural fiesta and June’s Refugee Week event relied on council grants.
“This is going to mean we’ll have to seriously scale them back by about half,” he said.
Harry van Moorst, director of the Western Region Environment centre, which has had its funding halved, said the community sector deserved to be a higher priority for the council.
“It will mean more pressure on volunteers across the board,” he said.
