Coastal rates blow revealed
BASS Coast Shire residents will pay an extra $95 in rates next financial year, after council last week revealed the highest rate increase in Gippsland so far.
Rates will rise by 6.3 per cent, with the average rates and charges bill $1693.
South Gippsland Shire Council is proposing a 4.9 per cent increase, Latrobe City three per cent, Wellington Shire Council 3.5 per cent and East Gippsland 4.5 per cent.
Council is even considering cutting services, despite acknowledging demand for services is increasing.
Bass Coast council released in draft 2015-16 budget at a special meeting last Wednesday. Council released the draft budget for public comment, then agreed in subsequent motions to fast track its service reviews and consider service cuts in addition to efficiency improvements.
Cr Andrew Phillips said it was clear people wanted council to reduce spending and were not asking for more services.
“There are certainly opportunities where we can decrease a level of service,” he said.
“We also need to think about service cuts.”
However, Cr Clare Le Serve said councillors should be wary of reducing or cutting essential services such as Home and Community Care (HACC), and maternal and child health services.
“If you go and cut services there’s going to be pain,” Cr Le Serve said.
“Council is a service industry. People need those services. We need to think about making savings within the organisation because if you take it out of the community there is going to be pain.”
Cr Le Serve also said council should reconsider its practice of hiring third parties to provide council services.
“We can’t always be contracting things out just so the numbers look good,” she said.
“We have to look at what is really best for the community.”
Council CEO Paul Buckley said demand for council services was growing each year.
“Our population continues to increase by 1.7 per cent per annum,” he said.
The current population is ageing, while more people retire to the area and young families also choose Bass Coast as their home.
Mr Buckley said there are already “noises” from Inverloch about the need for more childcare and preschool services.
He also said the quality of the infrastructure in new subdivisions was much higher than is traditional, meaning maintenance of the new infrastructure was also more expensive.
He said the forthcoming review of services would help council decide which services to cut or reduce.
“The broader review will be of the actual services we do provide and whether people would prefer we cut some services and put the money into capital,” he said.
Mayor Cr Kimberley Brown said operating costs had been contained at $2 million less than the strategic resource plan in 2014-15 for the same period.
“Employee costs have also been contained at $1.3 million less than the strategic resource plan,” she said.
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Posted by Tayla Kershaw on Apr 28 2015. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
