Council amends draft plans and budget following community feedback
Published on 21 June 2024
Snowy Monaro Regional Council has amended its draft 2024/25 Budget, Operational Plan, and Delivery Plan following extensive community consultation and securing additional government funding.
During the four-week consultation period, Council received nearly 300 submissions, and over 190 people attended consultation sessions across the region.
Key revisions include:
- Resetting Council’s proposed roads budget and maintenance program, enabled by additional Commonwealth Government roads funding. All unsealed roads will now receive maintenance on a three-year rolling schedule.
- Increased roads funding is also proposed in the revised budget for both the sealed and unsealed road network.
- Securing a major Commonwealth Government grant to offset aged care divestment costs, saving Council $500,000.
- Leasing instead of selling the Cooma Basketball Stadium, which will be reviewed in 12-months.
- Replacing the mobile library service with an outreach service to support smaller communities.
- Allocating an extra $250,000 for civic maintenance, parks and gardens.
A significant portion of the submissions focused on the proposed roads program funding. The initial description of Council’s proposed budget for road maintenance budget created uncertainty among the community relating to the vehicle movements per day. These measures were simply intended to convey where the roads maintenance budget was projected to be exhausted, and Council wanted to be transparent with the community about that. With the additional government funds, this approach has now been changed.
CEO David Hogan explained, ‘The timely boost in roads funding from the Commonwealth Government through the Roads to Recovery (R2R) program has enabled us to reset our roads budget. These additional funds, along with a proposed change in the balance between Council’s roads maintenance budget and the roads renewal program means that in the short to medium term, maintenance grading of unsealed roads will be able to be undertaken over a rolling program.’
‘In addition, an improved risk management system and scheduling program that will come out of our business improvement program will allow for some additional reactive maintenance on high-risk areas to avoid unsealed roads becoming impassable.’
While this allows for a road maintenance program, long-term concerns about the road renewal program remain noting we still have a gap in our long-term renewal program. Council will collaborate with State and Commonwealth Governments to develop a more effective long-term solution to road renewal for the future.
Additionally, since the original budget was prepared, Council has successfully secured a major funding grant from the Commonwealth Government to offset costs associated with the aged care divestment program – eliminating a further $500,000 of expenditure from the draft budget.
As a result of this grant funding, the Cooma Library opening hours are now proposed to remain the same and it also allows us to propose a mobile outreach library service. An additional $250,000 will be allocated to civic maintenance, parks, and gardens.
The proposed sale of the Cooma Basketball Stadium will be changed to a lease arrangement and reviewed in 12-months pending consultation with user groups.
Mayor Hanna acknowledged the hard work of Council teams in balancing the budget to reflect community sentiment, particularly regarding roads. The unexpected boost in Commonwealth funding support has allowed Council to better respond to community concerns.
Mayor Hanna said, ‘Council is in a very difficult financial position, and we know we cannot maintain all our current services. Council has listened to the community and thanks to the additional funds, has now proposed changes to the budget that reflect these priorities.’
‘We will continue to focus on the financial sustainability program, making the hard decisions when necessary and concentrate on our core services.’
CEO David Hogan emphasised the challenging process and the countless hours spent by councillors and senior teams to find the best possible balance noting there are no easy solutions.
‘The boost in Commonwealth Government support for roads and an additional grant has allowed us to reset our original draft budget, which is not only very pleasing but timely. That’s said, a range of difficult decisions remain for us to continue to put Council into a more financially sustainable position.’
‘We worked hard on securing that grant and want to acknowledge the support of our local Federal MP – Minister Kristy McBain – in helping us to secure the grant to offset those significant costs for Council.’
Councillors will meet next week on Thursday 27 June 2024 in Cooma to make a decision on the draft 2024/25 Budget, Operational Plan, and Delivery Plan.
Visit www.snowymonaro.nsw.gov.au/Council/Meetings to read the business paper for this meeting, or watch the livestream from 1pm.