No money is earmarked for the Pearl Beach Lagoon Coastal Zone Management Plan actions for stormwater treatment until year three of Central Coast Council’s latest operational plan draft.
The Woy Woy Tip is earmarked for a swag of money with upgrades to electricity and leachate systems and almost $2M on bulk excavations.
Peninsula Leisure Centre gets $50,000 for maintenance and some previously announced road upgrades are about all that’s noteworthy for the Peninsula in the draft.
Council hopes to implement a masterplan for Warnervale Airport within three years and create three masterplan options for Gosford Waterfront in the next year.
The timing is outlined in Council’s three-year operational plan currently on public exhibition for residents to comment on.
The operational plan along with a swag of other documents are on exhibition as part of the Council’s push to tick all the boxes for an Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) submission.
In the IPART submission, Council will argue it needs to keep its current rate variation for ten years rather than the three years IPART agreed to last year.
Council says it needs the extra seven years of the one-off 13 per cent rate rise and annual rate peg to pay its bank loans.
In late 2020, the then newly appointed administrator raised $150M in bank loans after the council revealed it had spent about $200M of restricted funds in ways it should not have and the councillors were suspended.
The restricted funds needed to be paid back and resulted in council downsizing staff, selling off assets and receiving a rate variation.
Council published about 700 pages of draft documents on December 24 as part of its paperwork for the IPART submission and these are open for public comment until January 21.
They are at the council website https://www.yourvoiceourcoast.com/
They include the Community Strategic Plan; Delivery Program; Resourcing Strategy; and a fourth one entitled Amended Code of Meeting Practice which proposes to cut down on public council meetings.
Currently they are held twice a month and Council is proposing to hold them once a month.
The operational plan in the delivery program document shows Council’s focus on services and its
capital works budget.
Sewerage works will attract 25 per cent of the total budget while water and stormwater drains gets more than 20 per cent, roads will get 21 per cent and buildings such as Central Coast Stadium, the regional art gallery and Laycock St Theatre will get 15 per cent.
The road works will come from grant money mostly with Council not putting general revenue funds towards some road categories in the next two years.
Another document, the Long-Term Financial Plan, outlines Council’s 10 year plan.
Council says the annual operating surpluses match the expected principal repayment requirements for Council’s loans.
But in 2031-32 Council is assuming an organisational restructure will be undertaken to rebalance the organisation once its rate variation comes to an end.
This will reduce its revenue and council says it will need to reduce $6M in employee costs and $4M in materials and services.
“This results in an estimated operating surplus of $1.5M which is necessary for remaining principal debt repayment,” Council says.
A further document, Draft Resourcing Strategy, shows that Council has a high percentage of mature aged workers with 41 per cent aged between 51 and 70 which is significantly higher than the average local government statistic of 25.7 per cent.
“Knowing this, it is essential that Council place emphasis on the recruitment of young people and provide career opportunities for this cohort, all whilst paying attention to the succession planning of the ageing workforce and supporting them through to retirement,” Council said.
But it said lower rates of education mean specialist roles are difficult to fill with local people and with an inability to compete on salary and meet flexibility expectations, Council will struggle to draw candidates from bordering local government areas and regions.
Merilyn Vale