A PROPOSED amendment to Mount Gambier City Council’s 2017/18 budget was knocked back during council’s final budget meeting on Wednesday evening as elected members cast their votes to finalise this financial year’s business plan.
Following five months of deliberation and community consultation, the revised budget presented to elected members showed an estimated surplus of $409,000.
Councillor Christian Greco put forward an amendment to overhaul the draft budget to reflect a nil surplus and to reduce the proposed 4pc residential rate increase accordingly.
“I think we should breakeven rather than have a surplus and residential rates should reflect that,” Cr Greco said.
“A budget is a best estimate and I understand we can’t factor in unforeseen things and it would be good to have a war chest for upcoming projects, but I think rather than having the surplus just sitting there we should allocate to these upcoming projects or go in with a breakeven for the year.
“I propose we have no budget surplus and the rate revenue increase reflect that nil surplus.”
Councillor Penny Richardson said she agreed with Cr Greco and would vote in favour of the amendment.
“I note other councils in the region have rate increases under 2pc,” Cr Richardson said.
“The cost of electricity is rising and there has also been no real wage growth for a long, long time – people are doing it hard.
“We need to be prudent and think of our community – if we need to raise more capital during the year we can do that.”
Council chief executive Mark McShane said funding had not yet been allocated to a number of looming projects and added he expected “significant expenditure on electricity.”
“I think we are going to get clobbered on that front,” he said.
“If the motion were supported it would bring the rate increase down to approximately 2.1pc, that would leave us with a zero surplus budget.
“Noting we have already carved everything out of the budget with projects in the pipeline that are pending.”
Cr Penny Richardson questioned the decision to omit looming projects from the budget, given council intended to implement them within the next 12 months.
“There is no implementation strategy for these projects yet – it would be erroneous to throw money into the budget just in case,” Mr McShane explained.
“During formal budget meetings I did highlight these projects were coming up but it’s not appropriate to throw in a bucket of money.”
Both councillors Steve Perryman and Frank Morello said they would not support Cr Greco’s amendment.
“I will support the original motion – it’s a matter of personal approach to the budget,” Cr Perryman said.
“The CEO’s approach is to say ‘I don’t want to write a budget line for youth strategy and allocate $40,000 because I don’t know if it’s going to be 40 or 60 or 80 and I might look like a goose when council puts more shape around it.’
“We have had processes within this council where we have done that and found we were short and had to leave projects to the back end of the financial year and commit ourselves to fund it in the following financial year – I’m happy to see the $409,000 surplus remain.”
Cr Morello said council’s intent was to complete or at least implement pending projects, including the youth strategy, cultural and digital plans, over the next 12 to 18 months.
“I also won’t be supporting the amendment – we have done a lot of work in different areas and we know these projects are coming up,” Cr Morello said.
“Our intent is certainly there to get these projects completed or begin to implement them before the end of this financial year.”
The amendment was voted down by a majority and Cr Greco called for a division on the original motion.
Councillors Morello, Perryman, Sonya Mezinec and Ian Von Stanke voted for the original motion to adopt the budget while councillors Greco and Richardson voted against.
