Council fights to remain independent despite threat of mergers

By Katharyn Brine | October 30, 2015 at 5:12 pm 1 Comment

COUNCIL: Yass Valley councillors have vowed to continue their fight to remain a stand alone council instead of merging with neighbouring shires.

They plan to do so by raising ratepayer rates.

Yass Valley Council has a month to respond to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal’s (IPART) report that two thirds of local councils across the state are unfit on a scale and capacity basis, or financial basis.

The state government reports unfit councils who don’t merge voluntarily will most likely lose control of the process and be forced into amalgamations of the state government’s choosing.

Yass Valley’s decision not to amalgamate voluntarily means it will not be eligible for merger funding of up to $10 million per council, and between $5 million and $15 million per council in infrastructure sweeteners under the Stronger Communities Fund.

Last week IPART found Yass Valley Council was not financially viable for the future, mentioning council’s change of heart regarding rate rises had impacted their findings.

Council decided in August to defer a rate rise after receiving an unexpected federal government windfall.

The report said, “This unexpected change in approach by the council to the key improvement strategy suggests the council may not be able to return to the operating balance of surplus in the required timeframe”.

Councillors debated the way forward at Wednesday’s meeting. Five voted to reinstate the Special Rate Variation as initially put forward during Fit for the Future workshops earlier in the year (Councillors Garry Ware, Ann Daniel, Greg Butler, David Needham and Michael McManus).

Councillors Jasmin Jones, Geoff Frost and Cecil Burgess voted against this approach.

Mayor Rowena Abbey was absent.

Here’s what they said at Wednesday night’s meeting:

Councillor David Needham urged councillors to consider the fundamental financial business strategy; to spend less than you earn.

“What IPART said to us, was that you’re spending more than you earn… They said on scale and capacity you’re fine, you’ve got the opportunity, you’ve got the growth, and we know that’s true, that’s why Goulburn want us, because we are the jewell in the crown that they want to grab hold of.

“If you’re a family household and you spend more than you earn, then you’re in trouble. You’ve got two choices; reduce expenditure or increase your income.

“You could short-term dip into your savings, which is what Yass Valley Council has been doing for the last few years.

“But it is only the short term and you still run the risk of depleting reserves… and still ending up spending more than you earn.

“The problem is that we spend more than we earn. We don’t have an efficiency problem… and we don’t have a governance problem… “

He said deferring the rate rise at the last minute was a mistake because it meant council was no longer sustainable within the recommended time frame.

“What we did in deferring the rate rise, we moved that bottom line of the curve across to the right and the time frame that was supposed to be sustainable within, we were no longer going to be sustainable for. That’s the problem we created.

“So we’ve not shown that we are prepared to live within our means, that we can balance our budget.”

He wanted to keep Yass Valley a stand-alone council “because decisions about Yass Valley should be made in the Yass Valley, not elsewhere”.

“We will manage our own growth.”

He said if council put rates up, they would still be below the rates of other councils surrounding Yass Valley.

It was well known that Goulburn would love to absorb this shire because of our high growth areas such as Parkwood, Murrumbateman, Gundaroo and Sutton, because “it’s rich pickings”.

“I am voting for Yass Valley, I’m voting for this motion… and for Yass Valley to stand alone…

Let’s stand alone as we can, let’s not be plundered, let’s not be part of a mega council. Let’s vote for a special rate variation and let’s keep us in the game.”

Councillor Jasmin Jones voted against the motion, saying council had been ”left hanging” by the state government before, such as with the Dam Wall fiasco, but council had managed to pull through and achieve it themselves anyway.

“I am against elements of this motion. I don’t know that we need a special rate variation yet. We have a report coming to council next month that is supposed to give us progress against the service review – that’s how you achieve efficiencies.

“Then in December we notify IPART if we need an SRV.

“We made a very sensible decision when we received federal government money to assist us with improvements. We made a sensible decision to put the SRV out of the equation.

“We need to do the right thing by our residents, and there is clearly not near enough money on the table for a merger.

“We should definitely stand alone.

“We have been left hanging by the state government on things such as the Dam Wall – we’ve had to achieve that, we did that by ourselves. Goulburn needed help.

“We have enough growth on the horizon by 2031 we will have 22,000 people in Yass Valley; that’s what Goulburn is right now. They will not be able to handle the complex issues… and deal with our consituents the way that we can with nine counsellors around this table.

“But we should be very aware of what the agenda is – we don’t get to re-sit that test with IPART, we are now in the hands of our masters in NSW State Government.

“We need to focus firmly on what they wanted us to achieve, which is real reform; the tough work, the hard work.

“We have not had our general manager comes to us and tell us what his restructure plan is, tough decisions that we would need to make. We have not had that discussion with our residents about what services we need to change or reduce.

“We’ve moved some pretty papers around in our Fit For the Future exercise, but that wasn’t an in depth discussion with our residents about what services we really can’t do without.

“Be very careful about what we put to our state government, because if we’re going to go for a rate rise before we’ve had evidence presented to the community on what we have done on the tough yards, then we’re putting ourselves on the table for a merger.”

Councillor Greg Butler was in favour of the motion.

“This is not really about a balanced budget.

“Council had a close look at the finances, including grants, and accepted that we could in fact run with a balanced budget without a rate increase. Unfortunately that’s not what the state government wants us to do.

“The state government wants us to increase the income we’re getting from rates. They want us to be able to balance our income from rates and our expenditure – they are not interested in grants. They are not interested in whether you can actually run this place on grants.

“It’s pretty obvious… they want more money coming in so that they can reduce the amount of money that they have to spend on local government.

“We’ve had rate pegging for three decades, our reserves are getting lower and lower… we’re being asked to do more and more work… and the crunch has come.

“The state government created all this, and the state government is now shifting responsibility to little local councils by saying we’ve got to increase our rates. We’re going to be the bad guys.

“I don’t see any alternative but to do what the state government has told us to do, and that is to increase rates above the rate pegging to meet the targets that they’ve set for us; we’re in a no win situation.

“I think the very best we can do is retain some control of the situation by remaining as a stand alone council… I think it’s quite clear state government wants us to assist in keeping the theme of reducing the number of local government areas. So I think it’s quite clear that we assist in that process.

“They’re our masters, that’s what they’ve asked us to do, if we don’t, then we’re gone.”

Councillor Ann Daniel supported the motion.

“I want to give Yass Valley the best chance of maintaining it’s identity and integrity.

“I think we have to move forward and demonstrate that we are financially sustainable. At the same time, we are looking at other aspects of our financial position… I think it becomes imperative to pluck the low-lying fruit from the tree, and get some money back… in order to improve the position further.

Having given approval for a rate rise and having been allowed to stand alone, then we can review the whole rate position and sustain us are we are at the moment.

“Compared to other shires, we are a low-rate shire.

“So let’s go for this fairly minor rate rise in order to demonstrate the soundness of our financial position and to continue as the Yass Valley.

Councillor Geoff Frost said he wished he could take out the bit that he didn’t like in the motion, being the SRV.

“I am for Yass Valley,  and people know I’m for Yass Valley. I’ve been to more meetings than the mayor, and that’s saying something. They are different meetings but I go to meetings all over the Yass Valley.

“The SRV is the problem in this.

“The way for us to maintain our independence, is to show we have the stomach to stick by our convictions, and when we put together a plan to actually make some savings, we stick to it.

“We don’t three months later [change our minds], because somebody reads the tea leaves about what may or may not have been said in a release by the government, that says we are not fit.

“We knew what those rules were when we made that decision. The community knew what those rules were when we discussed it with them all around the district… It was made eminently clear that this was the risk we were taking.

“The group was pretty much evenly decided, but the message that came through… was very clearly, if we have a rate rise, we will accept the rate rise only after you have shown us that you are efficient.

“Councillor Needham has been talking about spending more than you earn, and that’s exactly what [the community] said to us – not spend more than you can grab. That’s quite different to spend more than you earn.

He said the community wouldn’t accept a rate rise until council was actually providing the services that were of value to the community.

“That’s what the community told us we weren’t doing… and that they wouldn’t accept a rate rise until we could show that we were doing it.

“The farming community has said that this is going to be horrendous for them to have this sort of rate rise. Now they don’t get the opportunity to say ‘we’re going to put our prices up’. Businesses in the main street don’t say ‘we’ll just put our prices up’ – they don’t have the opportunity to do that. And the families that are our there, a lot of them are working in Canberra and there are families all around here that really do struggle.

“They were the ones that were most vocal… They know what happens in the public service in Canberra, they know what happens in their own work places when things get tough; you actually get down and the save money.

“You do the hard yards, you don’t just whack your prices up. And that’s what we are suggesting here. We are suggesting we run like rabbits at the first sign of grapeshot simply because IPART has said we are not fit.

“We already knew we’d have to do something when we started down this track, and now we are going to turn around and run the other way – well if anything was designed to make us look like complete idiots, it’s got to be this motion.

“A few people around here said at the time of the consultations, that if we have SRVs at the size we are talking about, of 40 – 50 per cent above the levy, they’ll have to leave us.

“These people say that the cost of the price of living is going to be so high, that they won’t be able to do that here any more. They’ll have to move somewhere else.

“We need to spend less than we earn, not less than we can make a grab for out of the ratepayer’s pocket.”

Councillor Garry Ware was in favour of the motion.

“Being in business all my life, I’ve seen things go up and down.

“Farmers have never been in a better position, ever. The rate rise will not affect them as much as what it will later on. That $5 is about how much it is going to cost the average person in Yass, per week. It’s not even a schooner of beer; it’s actually a middy of beer. Or a cup of coffee.

“I am in no way going to sell Yass out, I’m not going to sell the staff out of this council either.

“I’ve never seen any amalgamation in all my bloody life that we haven’t had staff lost.

“Think before you move, if we don’t do the rate rise, we’ve been told, we are unfinancially right. Put the rates up where they should be, like Bega, like Parkes,.. Shoalhaven.

“If you want to sell Yass Valley out and councillor Jones said ‘Yass Valley tourism, big thing’ but it won’t bloody be called Yass Valley, it’ll be called Goulburn Valley.

“Goulburn’s going to be the head of the place… Please for God’s sake think of Yass as a whole and for the sake of a small rate rise, which if we don’t do it, we’ve got to go to another place, another town, and we’re going to be paying double. Then stand up and say this is the bloody greatest place in the world – we’re just bloody gutless.

“Think of what we do here for the Yass Valley… If we don’t have this rate rise – and I apologise I was one of the dickheads who voted for not having one – because I didn’t know what was going to happen to Yass Valley.

“If you’re not here for the Yass Valley, to keep us here as one unit and to pay a little bit of special rate values… Shoalhaven is going for 20 per cent. We are probably one of the cheapest rates even with the special rate value.

The farmers are probably having the best times they can afford rate rises, Cecil told me the sheep are right, the grain is right and everything is good. But what about four years down the track when we’re told, bye-bye and then we’ve got a a 30 per cent rate rise.

Councillor Cecil Burgess said he was in favour of standing alone, but could not vote in an SRV.

“As a farmer I can’t go out there and say ‘hey, give us another $6 for my sheep, or for my wool. I can’t do that, but council can do it if they get this through.

“So I’m totally against it.”

Deputy Mayor Michael McManus said this was about the future of Yass Valley and as such, he supported the motion.

“I fought tooth and nail 10 years ago when they did it to us. It was a very unpleasant experience but we survived last time.

“I’m terrified that this time we won’t survive but I’m prepared to do anything, virtually anything, to make sure that Yass Valley survives as a stand alone council.

“So I will be supporting the motion.

“I think it’s too important for us to be possibly waiting for November, possibly waiting until February, we need to declare our hand and be brave and loud and say we want to stand alone and we are prepared to do whatever it takes to stand alone.”

Mayor Rowena Abbey was absent from the meeting.