Thoughts on the 25/26 Mitcham Council Budget

Thoughts on the 25/26 Mitcham Council Budget

I try and avoid mentioning the B word in my Mitcham Community News articles until after the budget is passed. Hopefully that means residents aren’t tired of reading about it in these columns before the actual decision is made!

Like previous budgets this term of Council, many of the new services focussed on funding projects that should have been done years ago. For instance, the Kingswood, Mitcham, Netherby and Torrens Park Traffic Study—completed in 2018—has finally been included after nearly eight years. Council’s delivery time for projects that have been consulted on is often years and in some cases decades. There is genuine community frustration over this and it is certainly something I hear from residents. Timely delivery of projects is a key part to building community trust and social license in Council.

Local projects of potential interest in the budget include:

• Resourcing for Tiwu Kumangka / Blackwood Community Centre + outdoor furniture

• Funding for the Blackwood Recreation Centre

• Upcoming Tree Maintenance Volunteers Program

• Deprecation funding for the Hawthorndene Oval Changeroom (The Federal Government funded the remainder of the project)

• Watercourse Support Fund

• Increasing the Land Management Grant Program to assist with woody weed removal and reduce bushfire risk

• Pro-Active Footpath Sweeping – Seriously, how has Council never had a program for this?

• Flexible Rates Payment System

• Funding for an investigation into a North South Pedestrian Link at Blackwood Centre

By far the biggest win in this budget though is funding for extending the footpath network. This is a tricky item to remain in the budget and I appreciate Councillors from down the hill who supported it being retained. Just last year, Council adopted a new approach to rolling out footpaths, consulting with the community first on where they should be constructed. Rather than Council staff identifying a street, then consulting with just those residents. The Hawthorndene Footpath Study saw a significant amount of community feedback and to have a substantial proportion of that implemented the next year speaks to my comments above about consulting and delivering in a tighter timeframe. Lots of critical connections in Hawthorndene to footpaths or even the end of the road have remained unfinished for many years.

Disappointingly, the budget this year contained a considerable amount of cost shifting + unexpected cost rises after community consultation occurred. 0.48% of the rate rise this year has been made up of cost shifting. Part of this cost shifting will be to recruit an additional arborist to assist with the improved protections for trees (not something we can complain too much about given Council has advocated for this for decades). Other factors such as the continued lack of indexation for the State Library Grant continue to financially impact Council.

Consultation again this year provided mixed community feedback, in both the level of rate rise and support for proposed projects. In fact, it was split roughly 50/50 between respondents favouring the lower or higher rate rise.

With 124 responses from over 68,000 residents, getting key takeaways from this consultation is quite frankly very difficult. One of the most popular new services consulted on in the budget was Council’s continued stormwater upgrades project. Despite this popularity, one of the least popular proposed new services was the Watercourse Support Fund – something which has the potential to reduce stormwater on Council land for an extremely small investment. Likewise, the new Grants Software Package which would free up staff time and provide improved efficiencies also wasn’t popular. Given Council constantly hears about spending money wisely and efficiently, the consultation results for both projects is perplexing to say the least. Respondents typically only support projects in their area or that will directly benefit them.

Shortly after Council went out to consultation on the budget, higher than expected increases in insurance and waste costs were delivered to Council. The timing is very frustrating, especially seeing they totalled an additional 0.16% of the rate rise. This presented two options at the 17 June meeting – proceed with the originally consulted amount (requiring staff to find an additional $111,000) worth of savings or add the 0.16% to the consulted number. Personally, I was in favour of asking staff to find additional savings in the budget this year – the chamber chose the higher option though.

This is quite a complex matter and unlike some other Councils, Mitcham’s savings each year are identified, not just a number on a page. Given the lateness of those cost increases and the fact that Council’s savings program ($9.8 mil over the past decade) has removed any low-hanging ‘savings’ fruit, there was a real question as to if these savings could have been identified before the budget was confirmed on 1 July. Still, I thought it was worthwhile asking the question.

Finally, I have no doubt that there are probably 13 ‘perfect’ budgets in the Council chamber. One for every Councillor + the Mayor. Not everyone will support every project included in the budget each year – there are certainly some items I don’t support. The refined budget process this year, (credit to Luke and Alice) did for the first time this term of Council see unanimous support for consulting the community on the proposed budget option. In essence, you are never going to get your ‘perfect’ budget and if everyone leaves this process mildly aggrieved then the process has probably worked as best as it can in my opinion.