GLENELG Shire Councillors voted to pass its controversial 2022/2023 budget last week, but protestors against the document’s rate hikes are not silenced, with a rally being planned by unhappy ratepayers.

Residents, including a representative of the Fair Go For Glenelg Shire Rate Payers awareness campaign, met in Portland yesterday to plan a course of action to increase pressure on the shire and council to revisit their budget-planning and writing processes.

Angry Glenelg Shire ratepayers booed and stormed out of last Tuesday night’s council meeting at the Portland Civic Hall, after the contentious new rate rise was passed.

Around 200 people turned out to sit in the gallery and observe the meeting, but most decided they’d had enough when mayor Anita Rank used her casting vote to push the new budget through.

The meeting had to be temporarily halted while the room cleared, with many in attendance loudly voicing their frustration at the decision.

It was a close call as to whether the budget would be adopted; in the absence of deputy Mayor Scott Martin, due to illness, the six councillors in attendance were split with three on either side.

The opposition to the budget from Councillors Gilbert Wilson, Michael Carr and Karen Stephens forced Cr Rank, as chairwoman of the meeting, to have to make a casting vote in favour of the new budget and corresponding rate hike.

The chairperson making a casting vote is standard practice for councils with an evenly-split vote.

When questioned about Cr Martin’s absence due to illness, given the availability and regular use of online tools such as ‘Zoom’ over the past two years, a shire spokesperson said council staff had made arrangements for Cr Martin to attend electronically via Microsoft Teams, “in the advent that his health would enable him to attend remotely”.

“Unfortunately this was not the case,” the spokesperson said

Casterton News also questioned Cr Martin as to how he would have voted, had he been present at last week’s meeting.

Cr Martin said in an email that he would “put out a statement in the next few days however I am still suffering from the effects of COVID”.

“I am at the tail end of it but still finding that head fog thing affecting me a bit,” he wrote.

“Ill (sic) start a sentence and not know what I was concluding to.

“Something I find a bit weird and disconcerting at the moment.”

In a follow-up phone call, the councillor said he would not be drawn to comment on his position in time for publication in this edition of CN, as he wanted the opportunity to speak to his position on the matter “like everyone else”.

The shire was also questioned on the potential for council to seek an extension of time, past the 30 June due date, for further consideration of the budget, however the spokesperson said this was not considered.

“At no stage prior to the Council meeting on the 28 June did a councillor request the finance team to explore an option for an extension of time over the preceding months when the budget was being prepared,” the spokesperson said.

“Councillors have for many months been involved with the development of the budget and were fully aware of the issues at hand.

“This discussion included elements such as the total revenue amount, removal of the rebate and the differential rating options.

“The finance team prepared the budget based on the councillor input.

“The process involved multiple consultation stages on the differential rating paper and the budget.

“Community drop-in sessions were held in May 2022 in Portland, Heywood and Casterton and feedback and submissions were provided to councillors from these processes.

“The Local Government Act prescribes that a Council must adopt a budget by June 30.”

When questioned about extensions to budget lodgement, Local Government Minister, Melissa Horne, would not confirm whether councils could apply for an extension, only noting that he predecessor extended the due date for the 2020/2021 annual budgets to 31 August, 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Councils must engage with their communities on their decisions relating to budgets, rates and other charges,” the minister said.

“We introduced the Fair Go Rates System to help limit uncontrolled rate hikes and reduce cost-of-living pressures for Victorians.”

The unpopular vote

THE newly-adopted budget for the next financial year sees an increase in $3.737m in council revenue from rates and charges, an 18.72 per cent increase for residential rates in the shire, 22.28 per cent for Primary producers, and 6.40 per cent for commercial ratepayers.

The residential increase is two per cent less than the original draft budget, once $164,000 was added to the previous year’s residential rate take.

Leading up to the meeting, 78 submissions from the public were made on the budget draft, with 12 taking the opportunity to address council in a closed doors meeting a fortnight ago.

At the start of Tuesday’s meeting, before the budget was debated and eventually passed, 17 residents from across the shire who had arrived at the meeting with questions for the council took the opportunity to ask them.

The questions session went for well over an hour, with the time extended twice past the usual half hour, but resident Kevin Stark - who has been a central figure in the opposition to the budget and asked a question himself - said he was not satisfied with the mayor’s responses in the meeting.

“I don’t think we were listened to at all, it was a pathetic example of a council at work,” Mr Stark said.

“It was a credit to the ratepayers of Glenelg Shire, the numbers that turned up and the submissions to the budget I believe are unprecedented, and the quality of the questions asked was excellent…but they did not take any of it on board.”

The mayor repeatedly lay the blame for the rise squarely at the feet of the State Government, saying that the Local Government Act’s requirement to charge rates based on an annual assessment of Capital Improved Value (CIV), made by independent valuers.

In the last year the CIV in the Glenelg Shire has increased by 33.37 per cent in residential land and 37.39 per cent for primary production land.

“Council has no ability to alter its arrangements other than the rate cap, where we could go to the essential services commission and ask for an increase,” Cr Rank said.

“I understand that rating is complicated, but the key point here is that Council is not responsible for setting the rating framework.”

A number of those who asked questions on the night had council confirm that the former 30 per cent primary producer rebate was money that council never had in the bank, but was counted as income to calculate this year’s rate rise.

Speaking to the Portland Observer on Wednesday, Cr Rank defended this, saying the removal of the rebate was bringing Glenelg in line with other councils’ rating system and that it would not be fair for it to be based on the number with the 30 per cent rebate removed.

The mayor said increasing the rate by less than the maximum 1.75 per cent was considered during the budget development process but was ultimately decided to be “disadvantageous”.

She maintained property value is out of council’s hands, pointing to other shires in regional Victoria, especially those along the coast such as Bass, on the other side of Melbourne, that have also seen a big increase in property value, and corresponding rate rise recently.

Though Bass Shire Council is much closer to Melbourne and takes in popular holiday hotspots Inverloch and Phillip Island.

“The rate cap hasn't driven the increase in rates payable, it's been the increase in property valuations and the methodology around CIV,” she said.

“The rate capping price at 1.75 per cent is designed to cover the costs of running the organization, and with inflation running at 5.5 per cent based on a national price surge, an increase in diesel costs and other costs, we're not immune to that.

 “The ability for us to run our organisation really relies on what is in the current economic climate a very modest increase of 1.75 per cent.”

Cr Rank said a minor amendment to the original draft budget was a change from an $89,000 deficit to a $62,000 surplus, explaining that the extra money on the books came from reassessing asset depreciation and building works.