The Municipal Association of Victoria estimates that labour, materials, inflation etc. results in a 4% increase per annum to councils across the state. If correct, that would mean that in order to simply maintain the same level of service, councils would have to increase their funding of various projects by this same percentage rise. Anything less indicates a decline in funding, and hence a decline in service provision.
Glen Eira’s stated objective is to “maintain existing service levels”. A review of the current and last year’s budget figures reveals that this is not happening when the 4% cost hikes are accounted for. The following figures are taken directly from the two budgets. Please note that some services have been REDUCED far in excess of what a 4% rate would indicate.
|
SERVICE |
2012/13 BUDGET |
2013/14 BUDGET |
| Aged Care | $634,000 | $570,000 |
| Family & children’s services | $706,000 | $110,000 |
| Shopping Centres | $550,000 | $550,000 |
| Pensioner Rebate | $270 | $270 |
| Libraries | $750,000 | $771,000 (should be at least $780,000 to maintain parity) |
| Drains | $3.9 million (this included over $450,000+ for Boyd Park storm water harvesting which had to be returned to the Commonwealth once the full project was decided against) | $3.5 million |
| Footpaths | $1.73 million | $1.73 million |
| LATM renewal | $200,000 | $200,000 |
| Kerb & Channel replacement | $160,000 | $160,000 |
Funding HAS increased by $100,000 for ‘pedestrian safety’, but gone down by $50,000 for ‘school safety’. Building works of course keep skyrocketing from $805,000 to $1.34 million.
One very interesting item is $105,000 for the ‘restoration’ of the conservatory! Exactly what this means is anyone’s guess – especially since there was the council resolution to do nothing but undertake further ‘consultation’. It also begs the question of how much work was done in maintaining the building in 2012/13 since it has been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent. No figures were provided for this item in last year’s budget.
Finally, we draw readers’ attention to our post of one year ago. It is still very, very relevant! See: https://gleneira.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/can-we-trust-them-2/
Glen Eira Debates 
May 13, 2013 at 7:35 AM
What I don’t understand is that why with all this development going on money spent on essentials such as drainage remains pretty much the same.
Common sense tells me that all the development, particularly high rise development (one residence replaced by 10-15), places a huge demand on the drainage and sewerage system not only from the residents within the development but also from increased surface run off. Yet there is seldom any mention of drainage and sewerage network capacity (actual figures) as development after development is approved. Since our forefathers didn’t foresee that railway/road grade separation needed to extend beyond Caulfield Station, it’s not a big leap to assume they didn’t forsee a similar demand on the drainage/sewerage system. The downpour of a few years ago that resulted in homes being flooded bears this out and it’ll happen again.
May 13, 2013 at 9:47 AM
I think Melbourne Water has to assess all developments in Glen Eira and sign off on all permits. It is not the Councils responsibility.
May 13, 2013 at 11:48 AM
The topic of drainage appears in multiple places in both LGA and GEPS (including SPPF and LPPF). Council definitely has a responsibility to maintain its own assets, and local drains are Council assets. The Municipal Strategic Statement under a banner of Further Strategic Work has this to say: “For housing diversity areas, in conjunction with Melbourne Water, further investigating the capacity of drainage infrastructure to accommodate multi-unit development.” Council hasn’t done the strategic work and has encouraged rapid runoff from multi-unit development into aging and poorly maintained drains. Its encouragement includes the removal of DCPOs from the Scheme, the issuing of Permits for developments that fail to provide even the minimum of permeable soil specified in GEPS, and its outright rejection of Environmentally Sustainable design principles.
May 13, 2013 at 12:27 PM
On the issue of drains, readers might like to revisit our 2 year old post and ask themselves – what has improved? what reports has council issued on the matter? See: https://gleneira.wordpress.com/2011/06/25/floods-and-drains-failure-and-cover-ups-continue/
May 13, 2013 at 11:36 AM
There’s a chance that Council doesn’t consider any of these examples to be services or to be subject to Best Value Principles. If that’s what Council believes, then they should say so and respond with integrity to resulting public criticism. It is hard to relate the various sums of money being proposed to the quality and service levels of the services being supported. Service levels and/or quality could be silently compromised since the listed metrics are so universally weak—and the suspicion is that this is intentional. What is the public getting for its money, how much money is not being spent on front-line services, and is the administrative overhead reasonable?
May 13, 2013 at 2:41 PM
All very good questions Reprobate. If these questions are broken down even further then we should get answers (which of course we won’t and councillors wouldn’t have the foggiest about) to some of these –
How many tenders come in on the allocated figures? How many come in way over budget?
How much does it cost to run the spin department and how many people work there? How many staff have been added to this section in comparison say to planning?
How does the wages of the directors compare to what other councils are paying?
Why are so many charges way above CPI year after year?