It seems an age ago that council resolved to abandon its pursuit of a $2.028M annual Special Rate Variation (SRV), allegedly required to support the shire’s six pools strategy.
At the same meeting on January 29th, 2020, council resolved to withdraw the the Integrated Planning & Reporting (IP&R) documents previously placed on Public Exhibition, to take account of council’s decision in respect of the SRV & to allow amendments to be made to accommodate council’s revised focus on rebuilding & recovering from the bushfire disaster.
The association has always maintained that council was acting dishonestly in pursuing the proposed SRV & on that basis, acted in a wholly irresponsible fashion in expending ratepayers’ funds in attempting to do so.
In speaking to the matters before council on January 29th, council’s general manager stated that:
“There are no financial impacts for suspending the adoption of the IP&R documents that were placed on public exhibition. Further work will be required by staff to modify the documents.”
The association does not accept the claim made by the general manager & believes that, based on the scale, duration & nature of the campaign mounted by council in support of the SRV over many months, that the cost of that campaign to ratepayers would have been significant.
The assocation also believes that ratepayers are entitled to know what those costs amounted to.
“requesting it to provide an itemised breakdown of its budget for the management of the process to pursue the SRV, including details of staff costs, legal costs, advertising & promotional costs, consultation & engagement, travel, printing etc.”
That request was ignored & the association subsequently submitted a GIPA Application to council, repeating its request for the information.
At the same time, council confirmed in its
Notice of Determination that details of
Staff Costs related to the project were not kept, with “
work undertaken by a wide range of council staff as part of their day-to-day duties.”
The association was already aware of the substantial level of staff resources committed to the SRV Project, having previously been advised that such was the case by the general manager.
On September 20th, 2020, the general manager confirmed that council’s finance staff had been directed to address requirements associated with the SRV, Operation Plan & Budget 2021 & finalising 2018/2019 Financial Statements for Audit.
For the BVSRRA, this means that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it is entirely reasonable to assume that at least five employees were directly engaged in SRV-related activities 7.5 hours per day, 5 days per week over a period of 20 weeks. Allowing for a modest hourly rate of $75 per hour, the BVSRRA believes that a reasonable estimate of related Staff Costs is $375K.
Coupled with the other acknowledged costs, this would suggest that the total cost of council’s failed SRV Project was at least $400K.
The fact that neither council management nor the elected council saw fit to construct a budget for the SRV Project highlights the level of contempt they have for residents & ratepayers & their complete lack of professionalism in addressing their responsibilities,
John Richardson
Secretary/Treasurer
Bega Valley Shire Residents & Ratepayers Association
Tel: 0264945669
Email: secretary@begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au
Website: http://www.begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au