Council
7 March, 2024
Unanimous support for advocacy item
CORANGAMITE Shire Council will advocate for a slower rollout of the state government’s good practices guidelines despite admitting financial impact on the shire.
At last week’s Ordinary Meeting of Council, councillors unanimously voted to raise a motion calling on the Victorian Government to “introduce transitional arrangements for the implementation of the Local Government Minister’s Good Practice Guidelines for Service Rates and Charges (herein; the guidelines) ensuring councils can mitigate the adverse financial sustainability impacts that may arise”.
The advocacy will be raised as a motion at the next Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV), the legislate peak body for local government among member councils, State Council meeting.
The guidelines, set out what constitutes good practice by councils in the determination service rates and charges.
The guidelines came in to effect from last Friday and are designed to ensure service rates and charges are used only to recover reasonable costs of providing a direct service to occupants, are calculated and declared in a fair and transparent manner and are subject to public engagement.
The guidelines were announced on December 22, 2023, alongside the rate cap of 2.75 per cent for 2024-2025 under Victoria’s Fair Go Rates System to address cost of living pressures on the community.
The guidelines in part detail that services which provide a general benefit to the municipality, such as tree planting, graffiti removal and street cleaning, should not be funded by service rates or charges to individual ratepayers.
The report before council stated while the financial impact on Corangamite Shire Council will be negligible-at-best, some councils could lose out on millions of dollars.
Corangamite Shire Council chief executive officer David Rae said a number of issues had been identified with the guidelines, “particularly regarding its implementation and inadequate consultation with the sector”.
“Whilst early analysis indicates the financial impact upon Corangamite Shire Council is negligible to none, the impact across the state varies greatly,” he said.
“The immediate shock of complying with the guidelines is unable to be absorbed in the short term by many councils, and consequently transitional arrangements are required.”
The report before council raised issue with the guidelines as S162 (2) of the Local Government Act 1989 allows councils to declare service charges “on the basis of any criteria specified by the council”, with the report stating some aspects of the guidelines are a “direct conflict”.
Cr Ruth Gstrein, an MAV board member, moved the motion.
“This has come in just recently and it has to be enacted by the first of March,” she said.
“It doesn’t overly impact on us, but I think as a sector we really need to push back in doing that through our peak body is the appropriate place to the state government that obviously councils have prepared budgets that are well down the track for the next financial year.
“I know of several regional city councils where this is going to be an impost of about another $2 million that they can’t use and is going to be withdrawn from other services.
“I think that this is an appropriate forum to send this motion to.”
Cr Jo Bard seconded the motion, saying she believed councils needs more time to adapt to the guidelines.
“I think it’s a pity that we haven’t had the time but we’ve still managed to get through our motion tonight,” she said.
“I’m happy to be a second to everything Cr Gstrein has spoken to.”