The adoption of the City of Karratha’s annual budget has been postponed pending ministerial approval of the city’s new rating schedule.

A motion to adopt the 2026-27 budget was scheduled to be put to council at the June ordinary council meeting.

City of Karratha chief executive Virginia Miltrup said the city was still awaiting mandatory ministerial approval for the transient workforce accommodation rating category.

“We don’t want to put the budget to you without having the full package of approvals ready to go because it all connects to each other. If we don’t get that approval, then we’ll need to go back and have a fresh look at our budget,” she said.

“This is very rare...this is the first time that we’ve had this issue, so it is unusual.”

Under the Local Government Act, the city has until 31 August to formally adopt its annual budget, providing several weeks of leeway.

It is expected a special council meeting will be scheduled to adopt the budget in the coming weeks.

Mayor Daniel Scott said that rating in the city was complicated, and it took others in Perth time to “catch up with what’s happening in the north”.

“Just be prepared that in a handful of days we might have to call a special council meeting and deal with this,” he said.

The application for ministerial approval was lodged on June 3.