Brisbane City Council borrows to overcome rates shortfall Brisbane City Council has borrowed $450 million in 2½ years to fund bread and butter services that would normally be covered by rate revenue. General purpose expenditure funds services such as local road and footpath upgrades, libraries and sporting facilities as well as accessibility programs. Council budget documents show that general purpose borrowings have grown consistently every quarter since March 2011, jumping from $247 million to $682 million in September 2013. "Why has debt increased so much to fund these smaller projects?," ALP opposition councillor and council finance committee member Kim Flesser asked this week. It's quite normal for council to borrow money for infrastructure projects and general borrowings, you can expect to borrow about 50 or 60 million a year, about the same amount council repays. It looks like the toll roads are causing such a hit on council's finances the council administration are relying more and more on general purpose borrowing from year to year. Finance committee chairman Julian Simmonds said the LNP administration had debt-financed some important infrastructure projects like Legacy Way in order to keep Brisbane moving. "We are also delivering key upgrades to our city's libraries, pools, sporting facilities, entertainment venues to improve these facilities for our residents," he said. All of this is in black and white in our budget every year. We make no secret of the fact that we are investing in our city's future infrastructure. However, Cr Flesser said finance committee chairman Julian Simmonds had been unable to say exactly what projects the general purpose borrowings had funded. "There needs to be more of an explanation as to why they have increased by so much over 2½ years, what it has been spent on, what these projects are," he said. In the past council used to be able to fund these projects out of ratepayer dollars. Cr Simmonds said total council debt had been forecast to peak in the 2014-15 financial year, but would be significantly reduced after federal funding for the Legacy Way toll tunnel is received. "What Labor opposition councillors fail to understand is that council will receive $400 million worth of funding from federal government for Legacy Way upon the project's completion which will significantly reduce our debt levels as published in the budget," he said.