Wodonga council split on delegating authority to CEO

Wodonga’s councillors were divided this week on whether to increase the unchecked spending limit of their chief executive. Find out why.

Wodonga’s councillors met this week to decide on the future development of public parks, allocate more than $2m in project funding and weigh up the benefit of membership in a climate action group.

The council was divided by a discussion around how much authority the should give the City’s chief executive to make decisions independent of council oversight.

Some argued that time constraints to accept tenders and make decisions related to the smooth running of the city’s public service necessitated “agility”, while others on the council raised fears that removing checks and balances would impact democratic function.

Find out what happened.

Delegating authority to the chief executive

Councillors were split over a motion proposing changes to Council’s Instrument of Delegation which would see the chief executive able to spend larger amounts of money without council’s approval.

The proposal recommended increasing the monetary threshold to $500,000, or $5m if the funding is already budgeted, to allow Wodonga City to be more “agile” in responding to contracts.

The threshold exists to allow council staff to make decisions independent of council to ensure smooth running of the city, but if spending amounts exceed the threshold they must be brought before Wodonga Council to decide.

“This recommendation is in recognition of the current market forces where contractors will often only leave prices open for 30 days,” council staff noted in the report to council.

Debating the motion, Councillor Olga Quilty said when she first joined council the threshold was set at $200,000.

“I think what we’ve been doing is taking the power and ability to make decisions from the community and giving it to the bureaucrats,” she said.

She said it was “important to democracy” to have the community and their representatives involved in making decisions at every level.

“It’s not a matter of trust or distrust … people, unfortunately as we have seen, come and go. Checks and balances stay with us and are to be valued and respected if we want a bright future for our city,” she said.

Councillor Ron Mildren agreed, saying he believed the council had “gone too far”.

“Traditionally delegation function was to ensure the smooth operational motions of council,” he said.

“What this new instrument of delegation has done, and to some extent what the new local government act has done, has muddied that extraordinarily. Basically everything is delegated to the CEO.”

Other councillors disagreed, Councillor Danny Lowe said the changes were designed to give the chief executive “some agility while we are still looking over his shoulder”.

“Anything that may be subject to community haste will be brought before us before he acts on it,” he said.

Three councillors voted in favour of the proposal — Councillors Danny Lowe, John Watson and Graeme Simpfendorfer — while Councillors Olga Quilty, Libby Hall and Ron Mildren voted against.

Acting Mayor Graeme Simpfendorfer exercised his right as chair to cast a fourth vote in favour and the motion carried.

Membership of the Goulburn Murray Climate Alliance

Wodonga Council voted to defer a decision on whether to remain members of the Goulburn Valley Climate Alliance until the next council meeting on October 17.

In May, the council asked staff to produce a report outlining the costs and benefits of membership, which the council provided $19,000 of funding for this year.

The Alliance is a grouping of 13 councils across the Goulburn and Upper Murray regions of Victoria working collaboratively on climate-related projects since 2007.

The report outlines Wodonga has saved about $45,000 in electricity costs since 2017 and reduced CO2 emissions by 75 per cent after joining the Victorian Energy Collaboration project to transition to 100 per cent renewable energy.

Similarly in 2017 and 2022 council invested a total amount of $2.24m replacing street lights with LED lights which it estimated would save $7m over a 20-year period.

Membership of the Alliance, the report found, has benefited Wodonga Council through knowledge-sharing and collaborative purchasing efforts.

“The membership assists individual councils through bearing the staff costs of tendering, project and financial management as well as providing access to project area specialists skills that may not exist in-house,” the authors wrote.

Despite a recommendation from council staff to remain members, five councillors voted in favour of an alternate motion to delay the decision until the next council meeting.

Councillor Danny Lowe said he hadn’t been able to clarify questions he had about the membership and wanted to wait until he could receive further information.

During our briefing I probably didn’t get out of the briefing what I wanted to,” he said.

“Just because our spokesperson wasn’t in the meeting so there were just some questions and unfortunately I haven’t caught up with him to clarify.”

Baranduda Sports Fields Construction Tender

Council will spend almost $1.4m to build new facilities at the Baranduda Sports Fields.

Local builder Gilchrist Property Group won the tender for the construction, which will see two netball courts and a soccer pavilion built at the 100ha site in the Baranduda-Leneva Valley.

A total budget of $24m has been allocated to the project, including a $10m commitment from the federal government, to construct the largest regional sporting precinct between Sydney and Melbourne.

Five tenders have been allocated for works at the site since July 2021, encompassing civil works, construction of the soccer pavilion, lighting, irrigation and fencing.

Planning for the sporting precinct has been ongoing since 2013, with the revised masterplan updated in January 2021.

Councillor John Watson said construction of the precinct ramping up was an exciting time for Wodonga.

“I’m really excited this has been a long time in the making,” he said.

“I think it’s a great time for our city, one of the big projects that‘s been on the list for years and years and years is now starting to form into something that will be worthwhile for our community.”