IT’S happened again: yet another historic balls-up has been uncovered by Vincent council, with money illegally withdrawn from the Leederville Gardens reserve.
The mess looks set to cost ratepayers at least $63,000, while the Leederville Gardens retirement village could end up $212,000 out of pocket.
Leederville Gardens is a retirement village set up as a not-for-profit, and Vincent council manages the place.
Council CEO Len Kosova has discovered the city’s agreement with the Gardens to be a tangled mess of unspoken handshake agreements and breaches of the WA local government act, and it’s caused a paperwork nightmare.
The council’s been sitting on a bunch of cash built up from the centre’s yearly surplus, which is deposited in a Leederville Gardens reserve account.
Under the Gardens’ constitution, money from the reserve is not to be spent on either council infrastructure or on Leederville Gardens.
Instead, it is supposed to go towards other local projects which benefit the city’s elderly residents.
Mr Kosova’s team has uncovered two instances where the council breached that rule and accessed the reserve for its own infrastructure, and three where reserve cash was spent on Leederville Gardens itself, all under his predecessor’s reign.
“The biggest disappointment is this could have been so easily avoided if the administration of the day exercised their proper due diligence and took advice from experts rather than assuming they knew best,” Mr Kosova says.
Mayor John Carey says, “I’m pretty furious. I am angry.
“This is extraordinary that in March 2016, our new CEO and finance director have to pick this apart, this is really appalling. Wrong advice was given and it looks like it was consistently given.”
Mr Kosova says the council has an obligation to pay back the cash, and will have to ask the Leederville Gardens board if it can also pay back to the reserve $212,000 spent — on bad advice from the council — on the retirement home.
by DAVID BELL
Perth Voice Interactive 
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