The association believes that council’s draft Operational Plan & Budget 2019-2020 placed on Public Exhibition on April 10th, 2018 should reflect the current collective thinking of councillors.
That is not to say that every councillor will or should agree with everything in the plan & budget & the association is certainly of the view that councillors have every right to say so.
Indeed, the association believes that the inability of residents & ratepayers to have an intimate understanding of all of the circumstances facing the council, makes it all the more important for councillors to speak to the draft Plan & Budget when resolving to present it to the community for consideration, if for no other reason than to assist the community to understand the context & priorities that councillors have considered in their formulation.
The association also believes that individual councillors should have used the council meeting as a platform to promote the draft Plan & Budget, highlighting its headline objectives, the major projects & priorities that council is proposing to pursue, along with key financial information, in particular how those financial considerations will effect residents & ratepayers.
Sadly, that did not happen.
So,
when the BVSRRA wrote to councillors on May 6th, 2019, highlighting its disappointment with the quality & incomplete nature of the information placed on
Public Exhibition, it also confirmed its disappointment with the absence of constructive comment by councillors regarding the draft, in particular the context in which it had been framed, which it believes would have acted to encourage further feedback from residents & ratepayers.
The association believes that Cr McBain & her fellow councillors simply “don’t get it”. The association contends that councillors’ thinking & opinions can only have value to residents & ratepayers if they are offered at the beginning of the Public Exhibition process, where they may assist in creating a better public understanding of council’s priorities & intentions & may prompt community input which can only enrich the entire process.
In keeping their views to themselves, councillors simply ensured that the community was not as well informed as it could have been, while creating the impression that they simply don’t care what residents & ratepayers might think. Alternatively, it may well be that councillors themselves simply lack the necessary capability to adequately understand & assess the draft Operational Plan & Budget.
The association thinks that if Mayor Kristy McBain & her colleagues really believed that such behaviour would act to encourage stronger community engagement & feedback on the draft Plan & Budget, they were simply deluded.
Council’s latest response was largely unhelpful, with the acting general manager claiming that it did not have some of the information requested (even though the same information had previously been supplied in respect of this year’s
Budget) & is not obliged to provide it even if it does (so much for council’s stated commitment to openness & transparency), while also claiming that council approval for future major capital works at
Merimbula Airport had been given when council adopted its
Infrastructure Prospectus in 2017 (plain dishonest rubbish).
Needless to say, the additional information that council has provided is of some value.
In response to the association’s request for council to quantify the alleged impact on council’s operations of the “Tathra and District Bushfire and Yankees Gap response and recovery”, the acting general manager confirmed that the scale of that imposition reflected in the draft Budget involved the maintenance of the Support Service Program “until at least August, 2019” & requiring the equivalent of just 2.4 FTE staff.
While the association believes that council’s ongoing support for all members of the community affected by the loss of their homes through natural disasters is crucial, it does not accept that the scale of the claimed disturbance to council’s current activities & plans is of major significance to an organisation managing a $100M budget with more than 350 personnel.
Council has also confirmed that ratepayers will underwrite a further $460,000 in contributions on behalf of a limited group of council employees still to benefit from their membership of the old State Government defined benefit superannuation plan.
Of particular interest to the association is the detailed breakdown of expenses making-up the “Other Expenses” Item of $14.8M included in the draft 2019-2020 Budget, reflecting a $7.1M or 72.1% increase over this year’s Budget.
This huge increase is directly attributable to a mysterious new $7.1M expense item called “Internal Charges & Other Expenses”. The BVSRRA has asked council for a more detailed breakdown of that item.
In the meantime,
the cost to ratepayers of the "top 5" expense items making-up "Other Expenses" (but excluding the mysterious $7.1M item), are budgeted to increase by $474K or 9.2% in next year’s
Budget.
Electricity & Heating costs (including street lighting) are projected to increase by $313K or 14.9% next year, while reflecting a whopping increase of $600K or 33% in the previous two years, while
Insurance costs are set to increase by $165K or 11.5% next year, while reflecting a massive increase of $715K or 81% over the previous two years.
The association believes that it is appropriate to remind residents & ratepayers of the promise made by the council’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in January of this year (having been prompted by Cr Bain), that council would negotiate a reduction in Bank Charges. Residents & ratepayers will surely be delighted to know that this initiative appears to have paid-off handsomely, with Bank Charges budgeted to fall by all of $1,500 or 0.7% next year, from $207,700 to $206,200.
Ignoring for the moment the mysterious $7.1M in expenses awaiting further clarification, the association believes that residents & ratepayers need look no further than the level of increase projected for council’s “top 5” expenses next year to recognise that there is little if any focus within council on finding ways to reduce costs.
The association also believes that the deafening silence of councillors on the planning process, coupled with the ongoing refusal of council management to proactively support genuine openness & transparency & its obvious failure to seriously pursue improvements in efficiency & reduce operating costs, will only serve to discourage confidence in council’s draft Revised Operating Plan & Budget 2019-2020 & its leadership.
John Richardson
Secretary/Treasurer
Bega Valley Shire Residents & Ratepayers Association
Tel: 0264945669
Email: secretary@begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au
Website: http://www.begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au