It has just gone 6 months since the Local Government Council Elections in March this year and when the new Council was sworn in on the 4th of April 2024. A lot has happened in this short time.
There was quite a bit of change in the new Council with a new Mayor, 4 new Councillors, and 6 Councillors returned to their positions. This change has seen a complete rethink of Council and how it operates and a big change of direction and vision for the organisation.
Going from a progressive forward thinking Council that strived to deliver infrastructure and services to our Communities in an endeavour to build Australia’s best Regional Community (which was our Mission) to a Council that what I can see is one that wants to take stock of where we currently are and consolidate our resources to ensure that Council is sustainable moving forward, but I can’t be sure of this as yet as we are still in the process of developing a new Corporate plan for Council which will set our future direction, this should be known and complete with in the next few months.
What has happened to date? Well, a lot. Today I will give a brief overview of the main topics and changes that have already occurred.
Topics on todays agenda -
New CEO
Budget 2024-2025
MPB Master Plan Works
Divisional Tours
Bundaberg Housing Incentives Program
Night time beach driving - MPB
1. New CEO -
Council undertook a recruitment process for a new CEO and Rob Williams has been appointed to this role. More information on Rob can be found by clicking the following link- https://www.bundaberg.qld.gov.au/corporate-structure
The new CEO is currently in the process of reviewing the Organisational Structure of Council and how it does business. The new structure is planned to be in place by the end of 2024 and will see a leaner, more efficient and sustainable Council, I am sure? This review was required to address an unexpected operation deficit that occurred in this year’s budget, which there has been a lot of discussion about in the community, which I will address further later in this report.
2. Budget 2024/2025 -
The 2024/2025 Budget was delivered on the 25th of June, and I was able to ensure that the funds for the Moore Park Beach Master Plan works stages 1,2 & 3 carried over to the new budget and are secure. Work on delivering this much needed community infrastructure is well and truly underway, as you can see when you look around MPB.
3. MPB Master Plan works -
The construction of the Community Annex and the New Surf Club is progressing well and both buildings should be complete by early 2025. Landscaping and Civil works will then begin, including the demolishment of the old Surf Club building and creation of the new foreshore area.
4. Divisional Tours -
To give Councillors an opportunity to showcase their divisions and highlight matters that need attention to the entire Council and Executive staff, a series of Divisional tours has been undertaken. All Divisions have been visited with the exception of Division 3 which is planned for November. These tours have been very beneficial to old and new Councillors giving an overview of how diverse each area is and an understanding of the complexities of our Region. We didn’t get to all areas in Division 1 in the allocated time, but I will ensure that the places that we missed will be first on the list for the next visit.
5. There’s No Place Like Home – Bundaberg Housing Incentives Program
The need for new housing to cater for the Bundaberg Region’s rapidly growing population has never been greater. To help get more homes built, the Council has launched the There’s No Place Like Home – Bundaberg Housing Incentives Program. As part of this initiative, Council is offering a range of measures that will incentivise the delivery of more housing, reducing costs for developers both big and small, as well as streamlining approval processes. There’s No Place Like Home – Bundaberg Housing Incentives Program will commence on 1 October 2024 and run until 30 June 2025.
The program consists of delayed payment of infrastructure charges for residential subdivision, application lodgement fee discounts for infill residential development, infrastructure charges discounts for infill residential development, the Fast Track Housing Assessment Team, and several existing initiatives. More information regarding this incentive program is available on Councils website or by clicking the following link- https://www.bundaberg.qld.gov.au/planning-building/planning-building-application-process/9
6. Night-time beach driving closure during the turtle season to continue -
Beach driving will remain restricted to daylight hours during turtle season in Moore Park Beach from November the 1st to March 31st every year, following the trial of the dusk to dawn vehicle access closure. The trial was hugely successful with fewer interactions between Turtle monitoring volunteers and vehicles and also an increase in turtle numbers to the beach.
The night-time closure to driving on Moore Park Beach to all vehicles applies between dusk and dawn, during the marine turtle nesting season from 1 November to 31 March each year.
For tips on responsible beach driving and local beach driving locations, head to Council’s website.
7. BRC Financial Position - COUNCIL IS NOT BROKE!
I find myself being a little perplexed by the current misunderstanding and misinformation circulating regarding Councils financial situation and the blame that is being attributed to the previous Council. Bundaberg Regional Council is not broke and never has been.
Council elections were on the 16th of March 2024 and the Financial summary attached to this post for the 28th of March 2024 shows current cash at hand of $189,185,588.00. This cash balance came about due to the prudent financial management by the past Council for the previous 8 years, in fact Council had been delivering budget surpluses every year since 2015 until the last budget.
We do have an Operational deficit in this year’s current budget which we do have to address. This operational deficit has come about by a series of events all accumulating at once, which does happen. At a Consultation Day on the 15th of April this year the current Council was advised that new issues had been identified since the election in March which would have impacts on the 2024/2025 budget to the tune of around $16.84 million. The main areas that had increased substantially were Council depreciation on assets after a new valuation in March (nb. Council has to fund depreciation), Employee costs had risen in line with CPI and the Federal Assistant Grants had been cut even further than expected, there were also other minor factors at play which added to this figure, but I won’t list them all here as I am trying to keep this information straight forward and as short as possible to try to explain a complex situation.
From receiving this updated information, as we do every year in budget deliberations Council set about looking at ways to lower the projected operational deficit and managed to get in down by a few million dollars and on the 25th of June 2024 we adopted the 2024/2025 budget with a projected budget deficit of $11.8million, which isn’t really a problem as we have accumulated surpluses from previous budgets to cover this shortfall, remember the cash at hand of $189 million.
Operational deficits come about when your expenditure is greater than your income and occur from time to time which is fine if you have sufficient funds to cover the shortfall which Council does. Ongoing operational deficits do need to be addressed to prevent the drawing down of reserves, which Council is currently in the process of doing. The Queensland Audit Office places Council in a “Sound Financial Position.”
I will admit that the previous Council is partly to blame for the shortfall in income for the 2024/2025 year, as for the previous 4 years we had tried to keep costs to ratepayers downs as low as possible and delivered 2 x 0% rate increases and an average 1.45% increase for General rates in the last term to help with the cost of living crisis and the after effects of Covid, this did effect the bottom line, but we were aware that we had the funds to do this.
I am proud to say that I was part of the previous Council for the past 8 years. A Council that continually delivered lower rates, upgraded and essential community infrastructure across our region, services that are envied by other Councils and on top of all that, our budgets were in surplus every year, giving us money in the bank. I only hope that at the end of this term my reflections are as positive.
8. Q&A - Questions from the floor were taken & answered but not minuted.
I apologise for the long report and for the information overload, but this is only a small overview of what has been going on in Council and Division 1.
Thank you everyone for coming along today and for your continued support, as always if you need to discuss anything Council, just give me a call.
Talk soon,
Regards
Jason
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