The published draft budget contains some very interesting proposals. Below is a summary of the main ones that residents should pay attention to:
- Proposed borrowings go from last year’s figure of $60M to the current goal of $65M and that still leaves the GESAC loan of just under $8m to be paid off.
- The Carnegie Pool redevelopment has miraculously jumped from $51M last year to $53M this coming financial year
- Pensioner rebates continue to decline. We are now down to the underwhelming subsidy of $23
- The Elsternwick community Hub and park has now been further delayed to 2030 instead of the previous estimate of 2017.
- $7M is proposed for the acquisition of open space. That is out of the current reserve sitting at about $25M. Hence whilst this proposed expenditure is a step in the right direction, we have to ask – is this enough given the long standing deficit of open space in Glen Eira? Also how much land will $7M actually buy?
- The Murrumbeena Community Hub is fast tracked ahead of the Elsternwick Community Hub when the latter is in a major activity centre and has population forecasts that far exceed that of Murrumbeena.
There is also plenty missing in this year’s proposed budget. No clear and easily identified detail is provided on which projects have been abandoned or deferred and where the resulting allocated money has gone. For example: what is the status of the proposed multi-storey car parks in Bentleigh and Elsternwick? Have they been put on the back burner or simply gone into the dustbin of history?
Other councils do not appear to have any problem in providing their residents with tables that are easy for any lay person to comprehend. Just one example comes from the current Kingston budget where carried forward works are depicted. Nothing like this is to be found in the Glen Eira budget papers.
The budget is also replete with jargon and statements that are misleading or totally uninformative. For example, on page 16 we find this paragraph:
The City is substantially developed and while it is experiencing an increase in property numbers, these mainly arise from higher density developments. The budget implications arise in Council having to cope with replacement of infrastructure such as drains which cannot cope with the higher density. These costs cannot be passed on to the developer and are paid for from rates. The rates received from new dwellings do not offset the significant infrastructure costs.
COMMENT: At the moment the costs ‘cannot be passed on to the developer’ because council does not have a CDP, or a community infrastructure levy. This income source was removed from the planning scheme years ago. The impression that the above creates is that it is not legally possible for councils to recoup some of the costs from developers and this is totally untrue. Also the 2016 planning scheme review highlighted council’s need for a CDP, So 5 years down the track we are still waiting for these amendments to surface! Developers can (and should) pay for infrastructure, but it all depends on a council that is willing to progress the necessary amendments to ensure this happens.
Next on page 16 we have two incredible sentences:
Continued investment of resources in the Council’s Transformation Program will enable further efficiencies and enhance customer outcomes.
When millions upon millions are spent each year on such programs and technology, surely residents deserve more than some glib pronouncements about ‘efficiencies’. What is the total required? What ‘efficiencies’ are achieved? And who are the ‘customers’ that will benefit and in what manner?
Another sentence on this page also needs detail and explanation – Council declared a Climate Emergency on Tuesday 5 May 2020. Responding to this declaration through our work program will require a substantial increase in investment.
Again, we get no detail, no projections of required investment and no timelines.
We urge all readers to take the time to assess this budget and what is proposed. Do we really need these mega projects (and without any published business cases) that will put this council into hock for decades, and what services are not receiving the required funding. What are OUR PRIORITIES as opposed to those enumerated by bureaucrats?
Glen Eira Debates 
May 6, 2021 at 1:15 PM
We are getting more of the same. Big spends on dubious projects and no business cases that would convince people that it is money well spent. If we have more and more development and the drains can’t cope, then how come the budget for drains has been basically the same for at least the last 5 years? My pet hate is the fact that around 80% of what’s written is nothing more than a cut and paste from last year’s budget. All that changes is the money figures that keep going up and up for staff and contractors. Could someone please explain how one project can increase in cost by 2 million in less than a year?
May 6, 2021 at 10:16 PM
People must be payed whether they do nothing or not, 2 million would seem about right cost to pay all these bureaucrats to sit around handing each other Cartier watches for doing nought.
All I’ve notice is that a large part of the car park out front of the pool has been caged with rented security fencing for 6 months a year, and it’s turned into a 24/7 de facto locked car parking area for all types of cars and trucks for people in the know. Some vehicles have council logos on them but most don’t. It does raise the question who is benefiting from this locked car parking area, and why did this area need to be caged and locked if nothing is going on there. Kick backs from the rent-a-fence mob comes to my mind. The comings and goings looks a dodgy as anything.
May 6, 2021 at 2:53 PM
The final sentence is what it should be all about. No one has ever asked me where I want to spend the money. Year after year I’m told where and on what it will be spent. They call this consultation.
May 7, 2021 at 3:49 PM
The gutters in Glen Eira are a disgrace. I was told that have an on-going maintenance plan. So why are the gutters in such bad repair and why do they do outside some houses and not others? to me it makes sense to say let’s do such and such a street and do the whole street both sides. It’s an absolute joke. Council’s piecemeal approach is a joke.
May 7, 2021 at 5:35 PM
Infrastructure falling in to disrepair, rubbish strewn neighbourhoods, tree decline, stacked housing, streets frequently burnt by the din of brainless hoons in vehicles with illegal exhausts systems, our shopping strips filling with shopfront fitness centres and boxing gym’s next to massage parlours, hoards of expensively clothed PR people reading from their book of lies, deceit and excuses all to willing to lie for money and position. All signs of social and urban decay in times of so called plenty. May you live in interesting times!
May 7, 2021 at 4:04 PM
Given the staggering increase in House prices and the current trend to develop side by side town houses which are now fetching the same price as a
a previous full sized house the Council are now getting double the rates than they would have previously. Council are happy to take the double rates but not happy to reduce the rate burden on home owners. To quote a phase “That’s double dipping”. Council do not try and cut rates it’s like an endless bottom of money when many are suffering with Covid-19 restrictions affecting employment.