So how will we pay for that?
We’ve been talking to residents at Roseville and Lindfield train station and their top issues (apart from development) have been
1. Proactive management of council owned trees (dead branches, roots causing problems) 2. Footpaths and road bottlenecks 3. Provision of playgrounds and toilets in town centres
We know that all councillors and council staff are keen to deliver on these, however, the real challenge is council?s own ?cost of living crisis?.
In the last decade, our operational costs (eg delivery of services, infrastructure and maintenance) has gone up 40% while our rates, which are regulated by the state government, have gone up by 28%.
Obviously when our income (rates) are growing more slowly than our expenses, something has to be done to balance the books. These options include?. 1. Looking for cost efficiencies 2. Reduction of services 3. Selling off assets (noting that this is not an infinitely repeatable process) 4. Increasing rates
In August 2022, before my time as Mayor, I actually moved a motion proposing that we look for these cost efficiencies. However my cost efficiency motion was defeated by former Mayor Pettett using his casting vote. He didn?t offer any alternatives to the efficiency motion either. He didn?t believe that we needed to improve on Council?s spend. He believed that Council was cost efficient.
Fortunately after becoming the new Mayor in September 2023 and with a new General Manager in place, we have started to look more closely at each of our key areas, identifying whether there is potential to improve the quality or volume of service with the limited funds that we have. We?ve looked at our customer service and are now in various stages of progress on looking at development assessment, compliance, communications, sportsgrounds, and other areas tbc. We?ve also looked at the long term maintenance of our assets and have identified significant cost savings with the maintenance of our ageing pipes, offset by increased costs with maintaining our community buildings. The overall cost savings identified to date have been $100m over the life of the assets.
What we find really bizarre though is when there are experienced candidates (current/former councillors) who claim that they will freeze rates while simultaneously delivering more footpaths and other social goods. It?s not possible or sustainable. I do firmly believe that there is still some ?fat? left in Council to trim out, and as a hopeful councillor-to-be we are keen to continue supporting that drive if the majority of the new council is on board. But we will also soon come to a point where there?s nothing more that can be done and we will either have to consider reducing services (e.g. slow down delivery of footpaths, reduce library, youth and seniors services, stop mowing the sportsfields), or look towards other ways of funding activities.
One candidate has inferred that she will revisit the long term financial plan, which implies that she will sell off public assets. But from my perspective, this will only plug a gap in council?s own cost-of living crisis by one or two years. After that we?d have to sell something else. And we don?t have enough assets to keep council afloat like this forever. Asset sales are also not the best idea when we have a projected explosion in population growth and need to retain a sensible portfolio for public open space and/or community space.
Willoughby and Hornsby Council have dealt with the solution through increasing their rates by 15% and 31% respectively. They did so by extensively consulting the public to see what they wanted to do, and the public told them that they didn?t want to see a reduction in service delivery by maintaining the status quo of rates growing slower than cost inflation. The public told them that they wanted to see a drive for efficiencies, and that they were also willing to pay more so long as the council proved that it was delivering more.
For an example of the options that Willoughby provided, visit https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ehq-production-australia/48dc3fb6900dda3aa80bc7064a3a026721b32213/original/1694751512/7d6aa9cd39fde884296f0699681668a8_A3_Options_Matrix_Chart.pdf
We personally think the most appropriate course of action for Ku-ring-gai is to continue its focus on efficiencies for the time being. Then if at a later point in time the majority of councillors want to explore the option of maintaining our current level of service, or perhaps even increasing services/infrastructure, then it would be appropriate to consult the public and give them the choice, much in the same way that other councils have. We are actually fine to respect whatever the public decides, and in each scenario I?m flexible enough to make it happen. But we?d only earn the right to go out cap in hand if we have first demonstrated that we?ve looked really carefully at internal spend first.
Going back to the original topic? Would you like to see Council take a more proactive approach to Council-owned trees? Would you like to have more footpaths and fix road bottlenecks such as Tryon x Archbold? Would you like to see faster planning and development? Would you like playgrounds to be upgraded? Or are you looking for something much bigger such as the upgrade of a theatre? When the new council is elected, please pass your feedback to the new councillors. It is our hope that the new councillors can put together a list, prioritise what needs to happen first, and have a serious discussion about how and when these initiatives can be funded (reducing another service, selling off assets, or revisiting rates).
