Calls for staff cuts as Logan posts 2.49% rates rise

Landowners in some of the poorest suburbs of Logan, in southeast Queensland, will carry the rates burden in a $1 billion budget handed down by Logan City Council yesterday. WATCH THE VIDEO

Landowners in some of the poorest suburbs of Logan, in southeast Queensland, will carry the rates burden in a $1 billion budget handed down by Logan City Council yesterday.

The majority of Logan ratepayers will pay an extra 4.99 per cent on their general rates bill from July 1, after the council increased its minimum general rate from $962 this financial year to $1010.

The rates rise will mean a ratepayer on the lowest minimum general rate, will face a $74 total increase, less water use.

Over the year that will include a $7 rise in the environmental levy, a $10 increase in the community services charge and $9 more in garbage fees.

The budget at a glance Logan 2022/23

A typical landowner in lower valued suburbs such as Woodridge, Yarrabilba, Logan Central and Kingston, is likely to carry the burden with some of the highest increases in their general rates.

Ratepayers with rateable land valuations of less than $277,791 had the highest percentage increase in their general rates.

Woodridge councillor Teresa Lane, backed the budget, but said her residents were hurting.

She said the council was wasting money on unnecessary staff, including a second co-ordinator for the city’s entertainment centre.

Logan City Council has handed down its 2022/23 Budget serving ratepayers a 2.49 per cent increase, one of th lowest bottomline increases so far announced in southeast Queensland.

She also said some officers, employed to field calls for orders of new green bins, were paid more than a full-time Coles employee.

“My issue is not with the employment, it is the number of those jobs listed as having no cost to the budget,” she said.

“It is disingenuous and misleading as any time we choose to spend ratepayer money, there is always a cost to the budget.

“I represent a division where 47 per cent of the people are owner occupiers and … 53 per cent are in rental housing … many potentially can’t afford to keep up with increases.

“My division is carrying much of the load when it comes to extra charges on their non-owner occupied properties and many are just mum and dads living off the rental income.”

Cr Lane also issued a warning of an economic downturn, predicting “hard decisions” would have to be made on cuts to services as inflation was set to hit 7 per cent before year’s end.

Logan Ratepayer Association president Rod Shaw echoed her calls for staffing cuts and said there was about $1 million a year wasted on councillors hiring their own personal assistants.

He also said the city’s councillors were posting out publicity newsletters at a cost to the ratepayers.

Logan City Council has put up its general rates after a year of floods, ruined roads and a slowing in revenue from development applications. Ratepayers have been paying for each councillor to post out divisional newsletters.

But mayor Darren Power said officer staffing was not his domain and said the council did not need to introduce a short-term rental property surcharge.

“The majority of the new staff is not new money … I allow the CEO to run the organisation and allow him to restructure the council,” he said.

“I don’t really care where the CEO is putting those officers particularly when they are going into areas of need.”

Unlike Brisbane, Logan did not include any incentives for landlords to opt out of short-term Airbnb-style rentals, to satisfy a white hot rental market where demand was far outstripping supply.

Cr Power did not elaborate on the budget’s financial benefits for small business and did not list incentives the council had spruiked for investors in a new private hospital proposed in 2018 which is yet to be built in Meadowbrook.

Big capital spending projects listed in the budget for the next financial year included a $9 million joint effort with Redland and Ipswich to build a new waste recycling plant at Browns Plains.

It will include a new mattress and polystyrene recycling program, which is expected to cut infill waste.

Road upgrades and a citywide beautification program along with funding for sports including basketball, netball, rugby league and the aquatic centre at Beenleigh.