Last Thursday night, over 130 people gathered at the Harden Country Club Auditorium for the first Harden Shire community consultation meeting regarding the “Fit for the Future” reforms. The topic for community consideration was the possibility of a Harden-Cootamundra Shire Council merger. Councillors from the Cootamundra Shire, including Mayor of Cootamundra, Jim Slattery, Cootamundra General Manager, Ken Trethewey, and Councillor Craig Stewart attended. Councillor Brian Ingram of Young was also present, as was Stephanie Howdle from Boorowa Shire. Introduced by Harden Shire Council Mayor, John Horton, and Acting General Manager (GM), Trevor Drowley, the meeting outlined the different options that Harden Shire Council was presented with, and the viability of each. After an exhaustive presentation of the options by GM Drowley, the only viable option was found to merge the councils of Harden and Cootamundra.
“This option meets the scale and capacity requirements resulting in a combined population of 11,500, which is on the lower end of the benchmark,” said GM Drowley. “I raised the question of scale and capacity in this option with Minister Paul Toole, and he said that this shouldn’t be an issue as long as it is long-term sustainable.” The decision to present the Office of Local Government with a Cootamundra-Harden template was unanimously approved by both the Cootamundra and Harden Shire Councils. But this does not mean that this option will go ahead. “If this option must demonstrate community support,” said GM Drowley. “I’d encourage everyone to commit to submitting their responses to the option to Council.” Residents have begun receiving a mail out from Council, which residents are urged to return with their opinions on the Cootamundra-Harden option. Both Councils will then review the community’s responses before voting to submit the proposal. “If only people who don’t like the option submit their opinions, then we only hear one side of the story,” said GM Drowley. “Therefore, we need to hear everyone’s opinion on the merger, positive or negative. This is the most important decision for the community in over 50 years.” A template for the Cootamundra-Harden merger remains on display at the Harden Shire Council Chambers until June 5th.
The presentation, however, was by no means restricted to the Cootamundra-Harden option. Both Mayor Horton and GM Drowley outlined the efforts that Harden Shire Council had taken in addition. “I’ve been in more meetings in the last 6-8 weeks than I have been in 74 years of life,” said Mayor Horton. Both Horton and Drowley spoke of meetings with Yass Shire Council, who decided to stand alone given their proximity to the Australian Capital Territory. Talks between Cootamundra, Harden and Gundagai also took place, with Gundagai vowing to stand alone in a Rural Council format. Rural Councils would abrogate some responsibilities to a larger Joint Organisation (JO), such as the Canberra Region Joint Organisation (CBRJO). According to Drowley, for Council’s in this format, “functions and staff won’t remain the same.”
The Boorowa-Young-Harden “Hilltops” Council option was also analysed. This option supported a recommendation by the Independent Local Government Review Panel, and was examined by the LKS Quaero consultancy firm in a $60,000 study. However, Harden Shire Council found considerable flaws in the LKS Quaero report. “The Councils told LKS Quaero that the study was not a job cutting exercise, yet the report found that there would be $1.2 million in staff cuts. We wanted to know where they got this figure, but we got no answer from LKS Quaero,” said GM Drowley. “The report also found that Harden Shire Council in 20 years would be debt ridden. LKS Quaero claimed that they got this information from our long-term budget plan. But this plan didn’t even have any borrowings!” said GM Drowley. Drowley went on to state that LKS Quaero, again, did not provide an answer for this supposed debt.
This solicited a considerable reaction from the 130-strong crowd. GM Drowley also expressed concerns about the loss of identity for the towns and villages in a proposed “Hilltops” Council. According to GM Drowley, this was also a concern for Cootamundra’s Councillors as well. This issue is also present in the Boorowa-Cootamundra-Harden-Young “super-council” idea, which was passed as a possible option by Young Shire Council at its Extraordinary Meeting on April 29th. “The Harden-Cootamundra-Young-Boorowa Council was considered early, but it was not supported by both Young and Cootamundra at the time,” said GM Drowley. “Young has now made it an option. It was not a sound exercise. It is not an option for us, it’s too late.” That left Council with the option of Cootamundra and Harden amalgamating. Instead of approaching a consultancy firm, the two Councils undertook their own analysis for a merger.
GM Drowley described the cooperation between the two Councils as being quite positive. “The staff of both Councils were largely supportive. They worked extremely well together, it was a useful exercise.” The main negative issues regarding the Cootamundra-Harden option were also outlined, which included crossing over regional state boundaries (the Independent Local Government Review Panel recommended that mergers take place within regional boundaries), and a misalignment in planning controls for land use. Concerns were also expressed by members of the community as to the distribution of Councillor representation in a Cootamundra-Harden future council.
In a future Council, the current distribution of 7 Harden Councillors and 9 Cootamundra Councillors would remain until the first election, after which there will be 5 Councillors for Harden and 5 Councillors for Cootamundra. In the 3rd election, there would be 3 from Harden, 3 from Cootamundra and 3 from all over the Council. All subsequent elections would be for 9 Councillor positions over the entire Council. Under the current Local Government Act, a ‘ward’ system, whereby there are internal divisions within a Council area, is currently forbidden. However, there is a new Local Government Act set to come into being in 2016. GM Drowley is hopeful that the new Act may allow wards in a future Council. As for rates increases above pegging, GM Drowley said that there shouldn’t be, initially. He did add, as there wouldn’t be a need for two General Managers in a new Council, that he wasn’t in a position to say whether a rates rise would occur in the longer term.
No staff redundancies were envisaged, except for General Managers, with retraining seen as the preferred option. GM Drowley asserted that the proposal had the backing of the relevant Unions. Due to the costs involved in centralising Council operations, offices and depots in Harden and Cootamundra would continue to operate. Concerns were also raised about the distribution of Kruger Trust money in the proposed Council. Kruger Trust Chairman, Jim Wright, said that the money will remain in Harden. “We’ll make sure it will not be taken by stealth, either.” GM Drowley also said that the proposal may be vulnerable to changes in government policy. “That’s the reason why we are undertaking this process in the first place,” said Drowley. However, GM Drowley said, “We think we can be stronger at the end of the day after the process.”
The benefits of the merger were seen as creating an economy of scale, a broader area for contracts, thus reducing unit costs for materials such as asphalt. Resourcing sharing was also a positive, and GM Drowley also highlighted the complimentary specialist staff in each shire, with Harden having an Economic Development Officer and Cootamundra a Tourism Officer. It would also mean a bigger budget for bigger projects. “The merged Council will also give us a much greater political influence and capacity,” said GM Drowley. Whatever the pros and cons of each option are, the decision now hinges on whether the community supports the Cootamundra-Harden merger proposal. For the proposal to be successful, the full support of the Councils involved and demonstrated community support is required before the proposal is assessed by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal of NSW (IPART). Once assessed, IPART will announce its findings on September 30th, 2015. Community consultation meetings will also be held at the Galong Hall at 7:00pm Thursday, May 21st, the Wombat Recreation Clubhouse at 7.00pm Tuesday, May 26th, and at Jugiong Hall at 7:00pm Wednesday, May 27th.
