Summary: Council meeting 11 May 2022

Draft Delivery Program, Operational Plan, budget and fees and charges on exhibition

Our draft delivery program, operational plan, budget and fees and charges will go on public exhibition from today. The suite of documents outline our community to the community on what we will deliver for the 2022-23 financial year.

The budget includes an additional $7.5 million which will be allocated to a heavy patching program on the local road network to start to address community concerns.

The operational plan outlines the focus areas for the coming year. Along with roads, other focus areas for 2022-23 include streamlining processes across Council to improve development assessment timeframes, working with businesses to create an Economic Development Strategy and mitigating the impacts of climate change.

The documents present a deficit budget, with the resolution of Council focused on improving the financial position of Council and returning to a surplus budget.

The budget for 2022-23, which forms part of the public exhibition, shows Council’s income and expenditure.

In the 2022-23 year Council will manage an income of $310 million, $104 million of which will be spent on our transport network and $87 million on water supply and treatment, $72 million on and sewer services and $35 million on waste services.

MidCoast Council has made an application for an annual increase for our rates to be 2.25% for the 2022-23 year, which is consistent with the projections set out in Council’s Long Term Financial Plan.

This was prompted by the low-rate peg advised by IPART for all Councils in the State of 0.7%, adjusted with a population growth factor to 0.9% for the MidCoast.

 As a result of a State-wide lobby by NSW Councils, the State Government has advised that Councils can apply to IPART to increase rates for next year back to the level they have been budgeting for – to a maximum of 2.5%.

84% of Councils across NSW have applied for either the additional increase or have existing increases already in place above the 2.5%.

The meeting also placed the Resourcing Strategy on public exhibition. This document shows our community how we plan on delivering the things we have outlined in the Delivery Program and Operational Plan and includes the following:

Long Term Financial Plan 2022-2032

A long term financial plan is designed to show our financial position to the community and identify the financial opportunities and challenges we are facing.

Asset Management Strategy 2022-2032

This shows how our assets will support the services we provide to the community both now and over the next 10 years. We have $5 billion worth of assets including buildings, recreational facilities, roads and transport, stormwater drainage and water and sewer infrastructure.

Workforce Management Strategy 2022-2026

Making sure our workforce has the ability and capacity to deliver on the work we have planned is an important part of good planning.

This strategy looks at how we attract and retain suitably skilled and qualified staff, plan for the future and develop good leaders and managers along with a range of other outcomes.

Information and Communications Technology Strategic Plan 2022-2027

Improving the experience of our customers and making it easier to do business with us is the focus of this part of the resourcing strategy. It outlines how technology will be used to support our business transformation program and drive efficiency and improvement in our customer service.

Also placed on exhibition was a review of the Community Strategic Plan, which outlines our community’s vision and objectives and guides our long-term decision making.

First developed in 2018, after extensive consultation with the community it is our key strategic planning document. It is reviewed every four years, following an election.

This review has been informed by the experiences of our community over the past four years, and specific engagement we undertook late last year to ensure it still reflects the priorities and concerns of the community.

The document outlines four outcome areas: 

• A resilient and socially connected community
• An integrated and considered approach to manage our natural and build environment
• Thriving and strong economy
• Strong leadership and good governance   

Council resolved to purchase several lots of land at the entrance at Wingham to allow for construction activities and a traffic bypass during the construction of a new Cedar Party Creek Bridge in the coming financial year.

This will allow Council to take ownership of the area known as Chrissy Gollan Park, which while used as a public reserve has been in private ownership.