COUNCILLOR EXPENDITURE POLICY – SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING
Cr Fraser –“ The idea of three Councillors signing off on a letter to the CEO Carl Cowie to call a Special Council Meeting three hours later that evening where Local Government Act required at least seven days’ public notice might seem ludicrous. Yet that is what happened before the Special Council meeting on 29 August 2016 when Council last met to consider this Draft Councillors’ Expenditure Policy.
Council had no alternative but to adjourn off the consideration of this draft Policy to yet another Special Council meeting this afternoon.
Repeatedly approaching Council in this way is all shaping up as an abuse of Council processes.
This will be the fourth attempt by Council Governance to force through Council this revisionist draft Councillor Expenses Policy before the pre- election caretaker period cuts in late September. One has to ask why Governance is so determined to force through this policy?
The draft policy provides another $10,000 over the four year term of Council for each councillor to undertake “Education and Training”. This will be in addition to the $16,000 already allowed to councillors for “Conferences and Seminars” and, if approved, would bring the total allowed to each councillor to $26,000 (or $29,500 pa if mayor) per councillor four year term.
On 25 July Council granted an extension of time to bring on the draft Policy.
Governance then failed to get it through Council on 22 August 2016 when Cr Dixon wanted another ten cents per km for councillors’ car travelling mileage – up from the Tax Office rate of 66 cents to 76 cents. He voted with Crs Pittock, Rodgers, Fraser and Wood to vote down the draft policy.
Management then had another go on 29 August 2016 to get through this draft policy. This too failed because the community have a statutory right to proper notice of a Special Council Meeting and notice of the business to be transacted. Governance had overlooked to get the written notice required by the Local Government Act to call a Special Council Meeting. The Local Government Act requires at least 7 days “public notice” of a Special Council Meeting.
In an attempt to fix this, late in the afternoon of 29 August 2016, the Manager Governance rounded up Crs David Gibb, Anne Shaw and David Garnock at 4.00pm – three hours before the 7.00pm scheduled Special Council meeting to “sign off” on written notice requesting a Special Council Meeting citing “urgent or extraordinary” circumstances.
All of this was nonsense because there were no “urgent or extraordinary circumstances”.
All this silly manoeuvring will be of interest to the Ombudsman currently investigating transparency of local government decision making in the Shire. If the item had gone ahead for a decision Council on 29 August 2016, the public’s legal right to proper notice of a council meeting and the of the business to be transacted would have been defeated.
I turn now to the terms of the draft Councillor Expenses Policy we are considering this evening. It is said by management that the existing Policy is ambiguous and requires revision. This is humbug.
On five occasions over the last four years in relation to 8 councillors’ claims for these expenses, management has unequivocally reported in writing to meetings of Council that the limits for each councillor are $4,000 per annum or $16,000 per term. The Mayor has an additional $3,500 per annum available.
Indeed, our Manager Governance told a meeting of Council on 23 November 2015 that “There is no scope for expenditure beyond that $16,000 over the 4 year term” Neither management nor councillors could be in any doubt as to these policy limits.
But the matter does not end there. Management sought legal advice at the request of an unnamed “one councillor”. However management left out of the instructions to the lawyers the written management reports to Council I have referred to and the consequent legal advice was compromised.
As to the draft Policy yet again put forward by management for Councils consideration this afternoon, the idea that councillors should this afternoon vote for additional expenses totalling $110,000 over four years for so called “Education and Training” will rightly be regarded by the community as obscene and I will not support it.