Perth Voice Interactive

VINCENT council’s budget has been approved with a 3.65 per cent rates rise.

Thirty-thousand dollars will be set aside for potential legal action stemming from amalgamations.

“We are putting that money aside in case council does wish to pursue legal action,” mayor John Carey says.

Retired councillor Dudley Maier attended the meeting to warn his erstwhile colleagues the budget was riddled with problems, not least a mounting deficit, and projections of a surplus were suspect.

For four years council bean counters have predicted surpluses and they’ve been wrong every time.

Last year there was a massive variance with finance chief Mike Rootsey predicting a $3.9 million surplus. Just a month later the council was $3.8m in the hole.

With mergers impending, Mr Maier fears Vincent is leaving the deficit for the next council to deal with.

“Council should not stick its head in the sand and hope the issues go away, or just hope it becomes somebody else’s problem after amalgamations,” he said.

Mr Rootsey stood by the prediction: “I do believe we’ll be in a position of surplus.”

Mr Maier was baffled the council hadn’t hired any more planning staff.

The council concedes its planning section has “suffered from a number of departures of senior and other staff during this last year” but says there’s now a new planning officer coming aboard.

The mayor’s pinning his hopes on incoming CEO Len Kosova reducing the backlog: as planning director at Wanneroo he cut processing averages from three months to a couple of weeks.

Despite Mr Maier’s concerns, every elected member voted to approve the budget save Cr Ros Harley, who mistakenly voted against it (she thought the council was voting on a procedural motion to look at items separately, which she opposed).

by DAVID BELL