The first budget of the new term of Mount Isa City Council will be handed down at a special meeting on Wednesday, June 24. In a time when new mayor Danielle Slade said city business was "hurting", she said budget negotiations were continuing and she looked forward to handing down her first budget. "We've got a $2.5 Works For Queensland grant which is exciting because we've got a few shovel-ready projects to go so that's great news and there's that $100 million from the state government and the resource sector we're looking at and that's for infrastructure which is exciting as well." Cr Slade said council was trying to keep rate rises to a minimum. "We've made the finance team work very hard, all the teams are going back to the drawing board a couple of times to figure out what to keep," she said. "We're looking at keeping things that are well funded by federal or state, and the other priority is things that need to be done now." Cr Slade admitted her election came too late to effect too much change to the water rates system, which she campaigned hard on during the council election. "I have been pushing for having a choice. What's hard at the moment is we only had two months before the budget comes through, it isn't going to give me enough time to get over the line for this budget but is something I'm really hopeful for in the next budget," she said. "One of the difficulties is benchmarking with other councils. If you look at the Whitsundays (Council) website they do it perfectly. They use a tool for the last year and it will calculate for you that if you stay on a two-part tariff you will save this and if you went to a water allocation you'd pay this. So you can choose the version for yourself." Cr Slade spoke to the Whitsundays mayor Andrew Willcox who said water was an issue for years until they trialled a choice in 2016 and now people were happy. "They actually make more money on water, and I said to him, how do you do that and he said some people want to know they've got this much to use so they can water their yards, and these people don't use their water allocation," she said. "And on the other side, you've got water-smart people who use more water than they intended. So in the end, everyone was happy and Council wasn't out of pocket, so it's something I'm driving." Cr Slade said the new smart water meters arriving soon will help and also stop people from cheating the system. "You'll be able to track your water usage on your own place and you have a leak we can flag it with you," she said. "One of the things we want to work on as a council in the next 12 months is water infrastructure, it's old and they've been putting bandaids on for a long time," she said. Local arts and community organisations are urged to apply for the latest round of Council's Regional Arts Development Fund - applications close on Wednesday, June 17. The Mount Isa Show Day public holiday will still be observed on on Friday, June 19. SEE ALSO: The Xtra Mile heads down the app road While you are here subscribe to our weekly email to your inbox every Tuesday and Friday