Dungog Council will engage technical advisers to help guide them through the Fit for the Future program and merger talks with Maitland Council.
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For last week’s council meeting, general manager Craig Deasey prepared a report saying he had met with the general manager of Maitland Council David Evans on February 11 to discuss the Office of Local Government’s support in assisting councils to progress discussions.
Discussions also explored options of the rural council model and resource sharing opportunities.
“Whilst both councils have a lot of anecdotal information and both have worked through the Fit for the Future criteria results, Maitland had also consolidated the data from both councils which resulted in only two results meeting the Fit for the Future criteria,” Mr Deasey said.
“Maitland is under significant growth pressure and the capacity of their organisation is extremely limited.
“The underlying issue was still the matter of scale and capacity, which is emphasised in every one of the templates published by the Office of Local Government.
“The next step in the process should be the development of a merger business case.
“The primary purpose of the merger business case is to provide councils with the necessary information to allow them to progress discussions and to determine whether a proposed merger is the right outcome.
“The emphasis for this council must be to progress the development of the merger business case to inform discussions between Maitland and Dungog councils as June 30 is only 19 weeks away.”
Whilst the merger business case is being developed that does not mean the councils will resolve to merge.
Both councils could determine to complete the improvement proposal template instead of the merger proposal template following consultation with their communities.
According to Mr Deasey the improvement proposal template is going to require a lot of work in a short period of time.
Mr Deasey provided the councillors with the option of securing technical advisers to assist or council officers endeavour to complete the work within the required time-frame.
“We could be looking at $200,000 or more to get professional advice to support such a proposal,” he said.
“We need technical advisors for financial sustainability, asset and infrastructure management planning, service delivery and review advice and community engagement support.
“Financing the additional technical advisers is difficult to assess as there are elements which may be able to be provided as a package from one supplier or the council may have to deal with multiple contracts.
“Consultants don’t come cheap. However the work which is undertaken will also assist in progressing a special rate variation into the future.
“Council also needs to have an objective view and not a subjective view of matters especially when it comes to the service delivery areas.
“I am unable at this stage to determine how to fund the technical advisors project.
“My concern is that with the projected revised operating cash budget for 2014/15, council will have to either defer works within the current year or look at assessing internally restricted funds that were being accumulated to fund other projects.”