Staff numbers at Glen Eira continue to rise and rise. We’ve reported several times already on the number of ‘fat cats’ sitting on well over $230,000 per annum in contrast to other councils. But the scenario is even worse when we include ‘contractor’ costs. The promise made years ago was that Council would try to minimise its reliance on contractors. So much for promises! Below is a table detailing employee and contractor costs for the last 7 budgets as well as staff increases from 2008 onwards. Contractors we believe ARE NOT included in these staff figures.
|
2006/7 |
2007/8 | 2008/9 | 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 |
2012/13 |
|
|
Salary |
37,960 | 41,066 | 43,277 | 44,073 | 47,838 | 51,841 |
56,277 |
|
Contractors |
16,339 | 16,063 | 16,803 | 17,646 | 20,532 | 22,471 |
25,183 |
|
Staff (EFT) |
? | ? | 623 | 630 | 654 | 715 |
736 |
Glen Eira Debates 
May 31, 2012 at 11:46 AM
Thanks for these figures Glen Eira. They do tell a story of padding and more padding. Close to 2/3 of income is now going to staff. Not a surprise then that rates have to keep going up to cover this and think there’s a 4% enterprise agreement each year. Not bad! The best is the contractors. Would love to get in on this little game.
May 31, 2012 at 12:01 PM
They will claim that quite a few people have and will be employed to run the new swimming pool in East Bentleigh. These employees wages should be offset by income from all of the members and users of the pool. It will run at a loss for sure. The costs will be so intertwined with other council activities it will be hard to see the actual costs. I am sure that Gleneira will have a good shot at defining the real picture.
May 31, 2012 at 2:05 PM
Gesac wasn’t up an running until a month ago but staff increases have been constant and the biggest increase was well before gesac was open. The claim that gesac will run as a profit is the biggest joke yet. The $247,000 is “surplus”. Would bet my life that it doesn’t include the 2.8 or 9 million interest repayments. That sure makes 247 laughable.
May 31, 2012 at 1:00 PM
interesting point I have seen Glen Eira park rangers at the park the last 2 weeks. There would have been a maximum of 3 people in the park at either time. Off course I am happy that they are enforcing dog laws etc but some might see this as a rather expensive exercise. When you consider that many thousands of people are using Caulfield station and there is no one policing them yet.
May 31, 2012 at 1:25 PM
Hiring staff is okay if what they do is needed and of good quality. The number of times that stuff has to be redone cos it was lousy to begin with is incredible. There’s no oversight of workmanship and money is continually shoved down the toilet for sub standard performance.
May 31, 2012 at 4:11 PM
Amazing aint it – after years of downsizing of staff (across a host on industries, including the service sector) due to working smarter and technological advances, it seems Glen Eira has yet to hear of it and adopt it.
It does make me wonder at how skillfull the administration is, and how effective Councillors are at monitoring, when rates and staffing (employees and contractors) are on the up and up yet service provided is in a downward spiral.
It also explains why a tree was removed and the Townhall carpark configuration was changed so that two new carparks could be added.
May 31, 2012 at 4:46 PM
I’ve been having a closer look at the budget and some of the numbers are quite staggering. Last year the corporate counsel was in the red for 1.308 million. This budget the numbers climb to 2,127 million. That’s nearly a million more dollars spent in this department alone. Quite incredible I think. Once upon a time figures were also provided on how many staff worked in each department. That is now gone from reporting standards by Glen Eira. I think it would be nice to know whether we employ 1 or 20 lawyers to tally up this cost. Then we could ask whether we really need 20 lawyers, or even 5 lawyers. I’m also fairly certain that staff numbers in the “community relations” (or spin department) would be quite impressive. These figures should be available if this council really believed in accountability.