On June 10th, 2020, council once again lied to our community regarding its financial position.
Announcing council’s intention to keep the draft Long Term Financial Plan & related documents on Public Exhibition for an extended period, council claimed:
“Council has been aware of the strains on its finances since 2016 and has been taking steps to reduce the deficit. This situation has escalated since the start of 2020 as a result of cost pressures created by the 2020 Bega Valley Bushfires and the economic impacts of COVID-19.”
Two weeks before, at the ordinary meeting of council on May 27th, 2020, council received & adopted the Quarterly Budget Review as at March 31st, 2020.
The summary of council’s
forecast financial results contained in that review (page 2) confirmed that council was projecting a net operating deficit for the 2019-2020 financial year of $3.03M, around $1.1M better than its original
2019-2020 Budgeted result.
As far as the alleged “strains on its finances” or “cost pressures” are concerned, a quick comparison of the forecast end of year result as at June 30th, 2020 reveals that council’s Income for the year, excluding Grants for Capital Purposes, will be $94.2M; slightly more than $1M over its original Budget.
As far as costs are concerned, the same end of year forecast projects council’s expenditure for the year to be $97.5M, around $100K under its original Budget.
Now council’s 2019-2020 Budget was approved in June, 2019, long before the most recent bushfire disaster arose & the more recent COVID 19 pandemic turned-up.
The situation with council remains unchanged.
Council cries poor at every opportunity; in particular to try & create sympathy & support for its constant claims that it needs more money from ratepayers; such as its crooked plan for a Special Rate Variation (SRV) allegedly needed to underwrite its “six pools strategy”.
It offers no genuine justification in support of its claims eg: quantifying the scale of the alleged cost pressures that it has experienced.
It simply grabs at the most convenient lie & boldly makes its claims safe in the knowledge that the majority will simply accept them without bothering to check.
As an alleged arm of government, council is supposed to be acting in the best interests of residents & ratepayers, not dishonestly misrepresenting its status so as to justify trying to gouge more money from them.
The real problem with council, just as it’s always been, is its fundamental inability to control its expenditure & to manage within ratepayers’ means.
If the bureaucrats & elected council are prepared to so blatantly deceive residents & ratepayers, should we be surprised by anything they might do if they succeed in being promoted to state or federal government?
Poor fellow Our Country indeed.
John Richardson
Secretary/Treasurer
Bega Valley Shire Residents & Ratepayers Association
Tel: 0264945669
Email: secretary@begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au
Website: http://www.begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au
