THE State Government has lifted the pace of repair funding approval from the October 2022 floods.
Loddon Shire has been battling bureaucracy as it feared not meeting next June’s deadline to finish October 2022 flood repair projects.
The council has had only three groups of projects approved by August with $22 million of works stuck in the State Government’s in-tray.
Council had been critical of multiple layers of red tape to access the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements money under Federal and State Government emergency responses.
However, shire operations director Steve Phillips said this week that there has been a steady increase in the pace of approvals in the past two months. 
“The current total value of the program is approximately $25 million.  The work that remains yet to be delivered is approximately $20 million. The portion of this that is yet to be approved is approximately $14.8 million,” Mr Phillip said.
“Currently seven have been recently approved, two more are under review and 19 are being prepared by Council.”
Mr Phillip said there had been a marked improvement in the approval process. “Local Government and the Department of Transport and Planning along with Emergency Management Victoria, are constantly looking at ways to improve the process of the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements,” Mr Phillips said.
Then-mayor Gavan Holt told councillors in September that he had been part of meetings with Victoria’s Emergency Services Minister Jaclyn Symes.
Cr Holt said the indication from Ms Symes was given in talks with the Murray River Group of Councils.
“We were encouraged by the words of Minister Symes,” he said.
Delays were raised with Premier Jacinta Allan in early January as the region was hit last summer by floods for a second time in 14 months. 
State Parliament’s environment and planning committee report on the October 2022 flood emergency this year called for recovery funding models to prioritise “betterment initiatives”.
The report found that had been left with a government flood recovery funding model that did not rebuild infrastructure to withstand future disasters.
“The feedback from councils to the committee clearly called for a more streamlined, efficient, and transparent disaster recovery funding process,” the report said.