April 14, 2015
Rate Capping
Posted by gleneira under Councillor Performance, GE Governance, GE Service Performance[6] Comments
[6] Comments
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- April 14, 2015 at 9:27 AM
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Glen Eira Debates
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April 14, 2015 at 10:24 AM
Some sympathy for both sides. Cost shifting is a reality but so is the deplorable waste that goes on in the majority of councils. Staff numbers keep rising, pay goes way above other workers, and this council has too many directors on mammoth salaries. No effort has been made to cut costs or to be accountable for the quality of work produced.
April 14, 2015 at 12:12 PM
millions wasted on concrete plinths lawyers redoing stuff again and again because lousy job done in first place. Rates should be capped and staff who arent performing sacked.
April 14, 2015 at 12:34 PM
The politics stink here, as always. State Government wastes money and is undemocratic and lacks transparency and has no service standards and pays unregulated amounts of money to senior staff, and naturally wishes to deflect attention away from its own governance morass. Of course rate capping is about cutting staff and services, just as it did when imposed in the Kennett era. As for the process for implementing rate capping, it’s officially at Step One. The Essential Services Commission, yet another “independent” regulator, has received Terms Of Reference and published the TOR. That’s it.
A “final report” is to be completed by 31 Oct 2015, so unless the review is a charade, the State Government doesn’t know what the report says and what advice it contains. It is a fairly safe bet the ESC will consult a miniscule fraction of the people of Victoria and will not recommend anything their political masters consider unpalatable.
Natalie Hutchins is Minister for Local Government, so she is responsible for all the weaknesses and deficiencies of the Local Government Act. If she thinks the prescribed reports are useless for managing the efficiency and effectiveness of local government then she should improve the Act. What a joke Best Value Principles have proved to be. CEOs are a State Government imposition BTW.
April 14, 2015 at 4:33 PM
Nonsense Jimbo. Stop the fear mongering.
First, do something about the bloated council bureaucracy and workforce generally. Second, do something about the wasteful expenditure on totally unnecessary roadworks and the profligate spending on new equipment particularly in parks and gardens.
If we actually had a council that properly audited council expenditure this would have occurred already.
April 14, 2015 at 6:58 PM
I want to know one thing. Why am I paying such high rates year after year when other councils who have double the area to cover and double the population can keep their rate increases much lower.
April 14, 2015 at 10:08 PM
The Council Plan partly attributes it to GESAC. Oddly, the Plan put its cost index at 3.9% per annum, and then proposed a 6.5% increase in rates. Even progressively winding that back to 5% over 10 years, it appears to be a significant increase in real terms. Another contributing factor is cost-shifting from State and Federal governments.