City of Melbourne staff numbers to rise to 1477 as inner-city grows

Big population growth in Melbourne’s inner city means a growing need for services provided by Melbourne City Council. With more staff being added to the books, see how the wages bill will be affected.

Melbourne City Council will employ dozens of extra staff over the next year to serve a growing population.

Council budget documents reveal that over the next year staff numbers will increase by 37 to 1477.

The 2019-20 staff bill is expected to rise $6.6 million to $170.6 million, and to approach $190 million in three years.

Melbourne City Council is set to hire dozens more staff. Picture: Lauren Rosenberg

“As the city grows, so do the demands for services and programs,” the budget documents say. “Council must balance the demands that this places on staff with the need to contain costs.”

The City of Melbourne, which takes in the Central Business District and inner suburbs such as Docklands, Carlton, Southbank, Kensington and East Melbourne, has almost 180,000 residents.

This figure is tipped to reach 384,000 by 2041.

A city spokeswoman said the council provided a huge array of services to ratepayers and to large numbers of workers, students and visitors.

“We have budgeted for a modest staffing increase of 37 full-time-equivalent roles compared with the previous year,” she said.

“This primarily reflects increased staffing to support new projects in our ambitious $166 million capital works program, as well as an increase in frontline service delivery roles such as customer service and libraries,” she said.

Ratepayers will also foot a $127 million bill to pay contractors who are involved in work such as street cleaning and in the management of parks, waste disposal, infrastructure, and facilities.

Lord Mayor Sally Capp and Cr Cathy Oke inspect waste services in a CBD lane. Picture: Ian Currie

The council said that the 11 per cent increase on this year’s costs was due to population growth: more than 5000 new properties had come online to service.

Budget papers say: “Contract costs will also increase as the City develops more new open spaces and delivers infrastructure assets which require continuing servicing through our major contracts.”

MORE: ROO DEAD, ONE HURT AFTER ARROW ATTACK

JAIL TIME CUT FOR UNCONTROLLABLE CARJACKER

The city’s increasing popuation is also delivering a dividend to Town Hall in the form of greater revenue from rates.

The council is due to collect about $300 million in rates in 2019-20 — up $13 million on this year’s total.

By 2022-23, according to budget estimates, the annual take from rates will have risen to $342.2 million.

[e-mail]

@JMasanauskas