GM looking for budget deficit fix

ALL the services Coffs Harbour City Council provides are to be reviewed to help decide how the city's limited funds can be best used.

ALL the services Coffs Harbour City Council provides are to be reviewed to help decide how the city's limited funds can be best used.

Coffs Harbour City Council's general manager, Steve McGrath, said the city's draft budget, with its deficit of $182,220, was a very conservative one which reined in operational expenditure and the roll-out of new works and services.

He said it reflected the difficult economic climate being experienced by local government in NSW.

Mr McGrath said it had reached the point where hard decisions had to be made for the growing city, and asset management was also emerging as an increasingly costly new focus.

The review will include examining what efficiencies can be found, how new or improved services can be delivered and what opportunities are on offer to raise funds through commercial activities.

“Like any business, the council has to work within its means and work out how to use our limited resources to achieve the maximum benefits to the community,” said Mr McGrath.

He said it was possible the council could be facing some hard choices.

Like other councils, Coffs Harbour City Council faces pressures from both sides of the balance sheet.

Expenditure includes the costs of dealing with “cost shifting” from other levels of government, increased community expectations, and price rises in labour and materials. Money-raising options are limited.

Mr McGrath said long-term pegging of rate rises by the State Government had also had a serious impact on all NSW councils' ability to maintain and renew aging infrastructure.

“In Coffs Harbour we have around $1.5billion worth of infrastructure assets such as roads, bridges and buildings. With so many calls on our restricted funds over the years, it's not been possible to provide the level of maintenance needed for each asset and, as they've aged, the maintenance costs have correspondingly risen,” he said. “The clearest example of this issue is the 43 toilet blocks we own.

“Council has only been able to allocate around $32,000 over the past three years for capital works to renew public toilets. This has meant that only the bare minimum of maintenance has been done.”

The services review is due to be completed and adopted by the council in May, 2012, so that it can be taken into account in the 2012/13 Operational Plan and 2012-2016 Delivery Program.

Originally published as GM looking for budget deficit fix