Operational Plan 2024-2025

Frank Wilkie12:09

Okay, any we'll any questions for Pauline? For the motion please. Moved by Councillor Phillips, seconded please by Councillor Wegener. Anybody wish to speak to the motion? Put the motion to the vote, all in favour? That's unanimous. Before we get to item 2.4 which is the adoption of the /25 budget, I would like to move that the operation of the Standing Orders or any relevant provision thereof be suspended to allow Council to receive budget speeches from Councillors. Do I have a seconder please? Seconded by Councillor Stockwell. All in favour? That's carried. I'll go first if I may. This responsible and compassionate budget, the first for this new Council, consolidates the Shire's sustainable financial foundation after record high cost increases in recent years and enables Council to provide the services our community expects needs as committed to in the Corporate Plan, while acknowledging cost of living pressures many face. With many key transformational projects underway, such as the Destination Management Plan, Placemaking Program and Waste Strategy, this budget aims to finish the significant work already started. Council, like all businesses and households, is under pressure from rising costs to maintain the Shire's assets and run the facilities and services our community expects. In particular, the cost of asphalt, concrete and other construction materials continue to rise at a rate beyond household CPI. This budget has been set with the prime goal of accommodating these escalating cost pressures while maintaining levels of service for the community and being mindful of resident households' costs of living. Is one financial sustainability lies at the heart of this budget and any Council's capacity to deliver the services their communities need and expect. The sobering context is that Noosa will be only one of 20 councils out of 77 in Queensland that will be returning a surplus. Despite the high cost increases, the rate rise overall for the majority of residential properties owner occupied has been kept to the same as last year at 5.5% which equates to an increase of $94 a year or $1.82 per week. To help achieve that, Councillors have placed a freeze on all levies except for the Bushfire Resilience and Response Levy which is required to ensure critical investment in managing Council reserves and fire trails ahead of the dry season. Waste charges have been increased to absorb the increasing state government imposed waste levy and to support the cost of managing our resource recovery facilities. The $184 million budget incorporating operating expenditure of $139 million and a capital works program of $45 million will achieve a small surplus to maintain the community's equity. And stay in the black. In support of Noosa's Housing Strategy and to help encourage smaller secondary dwellings that provide essential housing for dependents, family workers and those in need, Council has cut rates for granny flats and secondary dwellings. Have also introduced a rates hardship policy removing interest charges on overdue rates to ensure those facing difficult financial or personal circumstances are not burdened with interest if they are unable to afford to pay their rates upfront. Noosa Shire continues to be the only county Council regionally to provide a rates early payment discount which is set at 5%. Rates rebate and discounts for pensioners and eligible community groups continue to apply. Through the introduction of short-term accommodation transitory rating categories and Queensland's first STA local law, Noosa Council led the way across the industry in taking measures to manage the impact of short stays on our community. Most recently we have seen many councils including Brisbane follow. '24 the 24/25 budget sees a continued focus and commitment to managing STA's impact on community and amenity, excluding strata title and home hosted. General rates for single STA dwellings have increased further to reflect their commercial use. In addition, STA annual licence fees have been set to ensure the rest of the Shire's ratepayers are not subsidising the costs of administering the Short Stay Local Law. With the adoption of the Waste Strategy significant investment in an expanded landfill and further investment in the Eumundi Road resource recovery centre upgrade works over the coming year will ensure we manage our waste in a safe and responsible manner. The State government's introduction of a higher state waste levy imposed on domestic as well as commercial properties has seen increased costs passed on to bin collection charges and to waste facility customers. The operational plan outlines the significant number of initiatives underway. These include finalising the Dog Beach works for the Noosa Spit shoreline erosion management plan and to protect the Noosa Spit. Implement the encroachments policy and operational procedure. Continue to implement and further review the short stay letting local manage the impacts of short-term letting including increased resources towards compliance. Continue to implement key actions of the Noosa Housing Strategy. Continuation of the living well low-cost community exercise programs. Finalising the Noosa Botanic Gardens master plan. Developing the Noosa parking management plan which will inform a future paid parking trial. Complete the Regional Art Gallery Feasibility Project and there's investment in technology to support greater efficiency of delivering services to the community on a daily basis as well as dealing with the ever-increasing cyber security threat. Council continues to demonstrate prudent fiscal management with the 24/25 budget, not only by ensuring a marginal surplus, but also by meeting all its statutory financial sustainability indicators as set out by the State government. This year's $45 million capital works program includes: $250,000 to improve local beach access points, $62,000 for beach shower renewals, $500,000 to upgrade to sports field lighting and Sel Bonnell Oval and Cooroy Sports Complex, $100,000 to renew Noosaville's pirate playground, $520,000 towards the ongoing renewal of the Shire's bus stops to improve accessibility, $1.53 million for the heavy road patching program, $100,000 plus to expand the Wallace Park precinct CCTV system, $820,000 for trail 4 and Woodland Trail 3 trail renewal, and $1.6 million for upgrading the Cooroy Gymnastics and Multi-Use Centre. In addition to this, there's over $100 million in disaster recovery capital works from the March 2022 weather event to be completed. Event to be completed. Compiling this budget has been a collaborative and rigorous process in a compressed time frame involving diligence, patience and discipline by Councillor colleagues, Councillor Stockwell, Lorentson, Wegener, Councillors Finzel, Wilson and Phillips. Executive directors and managers, plus long hours from highly skilled and financially astute staff, especially corporate services Director Trent Grauf and financial services manager Pauline Coles. Each and everyone here deserves thanks and credit for their input on this compassionate and responsible budget. Has caring for the needs of our community at its heart and I commend it to you. Anybody else wish to speak about the budget? I'll follow up.

Brian Stockwell20:18

Two basic parts of the operating. There's the capital works which once again this year is at significantly higher levels than we saw as an average since Noosa Council was reformed and there's the operating budget and operating budget is where this I year has been the most rigorous but also the most difficult process. Unlike other levels of government we can't whip out the credit card to pay for how to operate our Council. We can't use borrowed funds to run programs that are ongoing. Which don't involve capital. So that means that we have had to be quite strict and rigorous in what gets approved and while the Mayor mentioned about us all around this table actually I think some hardest work was done very early by the staff who really looked very hard at what they actually needed and there was quite a significant efficiency gain resulting from that first review by directors and managers about what they can cut out of their operating budget. One of the big messages I think we need to put into the community's mind is that how rates will continue to go up unless we look at other sources of revenue and we'll see later on in the operating plan that we're starting to do those investigations to work out how we spread the operation or costs of providing things that just don't provide amenity and utility to our residents but also to the visitors and so how we get every visitor contributing to the services they use whether they're staying here overnight or whether they're driving up for the day is one of the key budget challenges and the Mayor mentioned that you know labour and material costs over recent years have skyrocketed and that's put really significant pressure on the operating budget and you know what we have managed to do while many of us had to forego our pet projects this time around and we've managed to keep that rise to less than a two dollar coin each week. I thought I'd spend the rest of my time looking at it from where I live because I'm living in Cooroy building in Boreen Point and what is it for the hinterland community and of the things that we've you'll see in this budget is we've been very successful in attracting state and Federal grants and that is a good news story but also means we have to draw on many of those cases drawing our own funds to match them so what is the hinterland benefiting from so we've already heard there's over two million dollars spent probably spent on the upgrade at the Cooroy sports complex both a new undercover Multipurpose facility that will be able to be used when it's raining for a number of clubs that are already at that facility. We're looking at an improvement and upgrade of the gymnastics facility and new LED lighting around the somewhat aged and decrepit wooden posts are going to be replaced with new LED lighting around the old showground arena. The Mayor mentioned about the biosphere trail and that's a $1.4 million grant over three years totalling $2.8 million of upgrade and in this year we're starting with $820,000 of that in the renewal of the Kin Kin, Wahpunga and Wundum trails and for the old people that's trails three and four. Now, that's now a that's a lot of money for a trail through the bush but we know from the benefits it gives us from health the enjoyment it gets for the locals but also the fact that it's becoming more and of a attraction for people who want to visit Noosa. To get out into the hinterland and we've seen a huge growth in the number of people participating in mountain biking and marathons and silly people who long run excessive distances through those trails yes you should smile Mr. Mayor so what else we got in there the Cooroy Botanic Gardens so um it's growing better we're doing a master we've got it's getting better use we've got a very vibrant volunteer sector so as those grounds grow so does the demand to store our plant and equipment to maintain that luxury of garden and so we've got a hundred and sixty thousand in there for a new shed for plant equipment and I believe relocating that plant that shed such that some of the better vistas from the top of the hill and around the oldest and biggest tree the old hook pine will be incorporated more into the garden itself. Over recent years the hinterland community has been very clear when they completed the liveability survey, when they gave us the feedback on the Corporate Plan and more recently when making suggestions for the Pomona placemaking plan consultation. And generally the most important thing they want to see improvement in is the pathways along our street networks in our hinterland villages. So in this budget we're staying to implement some of those priorities with $253,000 to connect up pathways leading to the high school campus on Summit Road in Pomona and also together with improvements along Factory Street. Also another $80,000 links to Kari street in Cooroy. Now in our Housing Strategy we made a commitment to do what we can to facilitate the building of more community housing, affordable, low-cost not just for people on the public housing register but also for people perhaps workers for Council that are finding difficulty getting affordable accommodation and we one of the big steps we're making this year is we're proceeding with the subdivision on land at Lake Macdonald and there's actually 3.3 million dollars in for that development cost now we're very hopeful that we'll be getting state and/or Federal funding but the important thing is we've already resolved to agree to enter in a contract to purchase with a housing cooperative who are very keen to proceed and are very hopeful that they'll be getting some support from the State government to start building some of that housing in Cooroy. So we'll be offsetting some of that budget with sales of land and with grants but it is a really important commitment that we've put down in black and white in this budget that we intend to back our word in the Housing Strategy and when we get to the operational plan we'll show how we're trying to implement a range of strategies. So I commend the budget to all.

Frank Wilkie51:33

I'll move it then. Councillor Stewart, seconder please. Councillor Phillips. Any further discussion? All in favour? ? Carried unanimously. Motion 14 that Council note the revised 24/25 Service Level catalogues provided as an attachment to the Special Meeting report dated 28th of June '24. We have a mover. We have Nicola Wilson just quick off the feed. Seconded by Councillor Lorentson. Anyone wish to speak to the motion? All in favour? That's carried unanimously. Now the next item on the agenda is the operational plan. Thank you, Pauline and Trent. We now ask that executive officer of internal audit and corporate performance, Debra Iezzi, welcome Deb. Thank you. Can you give us a summary please?

Yes, Councillors. So under the Local Government Regulation, councils are required to adopt an operational Planning Scheme consistent with its budget and to progress the implementation of the Corporate Plan. So the Corporate Plan. Has been in place now for over a year, so this is our second operational plan that relates to the Corporate Plan. And in the presentation of the document of the operational plan, which is the attachment to the report, you'll see that the initiatives that have been identified are aligned to each of the themes and objectives of the Corporate Plan. You'll also see that. A number of them are continuations of initiatives that may have started last year and will now appear at mid-year stage two. And there are a number of initiatives that were put on hold, so to speak, with the local government elections allowing the new Council to come on board actually influence the outcome of those initiatives. So there's a number of those as well. It is an ambitious operational plan, but all the executive team and managers have input into it. And we will progressively. Report progress against the operational plan on a quarterly basis to Council, as we have done in the past, so that you can be reassured about the progress of the initiatives, whether they're on track, behind, completed, etc. So the last report for this preceding /24 will be presented to the August meeting, and that will be a sum-up of last year's progress, and that's what you will expect going forward as well, as we move through this current operational plan.

Brian Stockwell54:10

Yeah, I will. In any budget process, we tend to list the capital works as quite easy to see what we are investing in. Terms of the broader organisation, it's really summarised down into the operational plan. And from a Councillor's perspective, perhaps the most important bit of information and where we should focus on is on the page on the diagram that's taught entitled performance measurement hierarchy. Because the operational is what we get every quarter to assess how we're progressing, not just to this budget, but to the broader things we wish to achieve. So it's really good to see that performance hierarchy as an area of continuous improvement for this organisation. We just don't want to know the projects are on time and on budget. We want to know if the projects are on time, on project, and making the impact that we are doing them for. There's no sense having a performance indicator at a service level that's efficient, but if it's not effective. We can plant a thousand trees and meet that criteria, but they die because we don't water them. We haven't been effective in doing it. So that's where we look at this look at this operational plan and we look at those performance measures. But I thought what's most important is when you look at the operational plan, you do get a flavour of just how broad the beast of local government is. And I thought I'd pick up a few that we haven't talked about. So just to have a think about how any other, you know, in the corporate world, if there'd be a similar type of organisation. So the first particular item in the operations plan is talking about water quality monitoring. And then 1.34 is talking about implementing our encroachment policy. Now that's an area of significant interest, particularly to our eastern beaches, Bushcare groups, etc. And that was one of the areas where we had to really struggle with how much we could invest. Do we go and do it whole increase rates or do we continue at the current level and build up gradually? We look at 1.42. We're going to document the iconic story of surfing in Noosa. We look after heritage. It's not just the heritage in our buildings, it's the heritage that makes Noosa what it is. You know, the fact that we even let Californians in occasionally. We're looking at investing in doing a Noosa parking management strategy. Now that's probably one that's linked to one last items, of the last items. 4.91 which is about revenue diversification and 2.73 which is about new revenue to ensure visitors contribute to the transport solutions we're offering them. You know, if we're trying, if we're putting out free buses and doing systems to let people park and ride, we don't just want to capture some people through property rates. We want to capture people who are using those services and to ensure that residents aren't subsidising the visitors on those free bus services. We look at another the Transport Strategy being implemented which is to continue to investigate the option of a public jetty in the Woods. And that's to allow us to get off the roads altogether and start looking at are there options for public transport on the river. We've got when we look at our 10 year capital works program we see the majority of it is for waste management. And in the operational plan we'll start, we seeing some of those big picture projects that aren't even put into the 10 year capital works yet because we're still investigating them. We've got we're going to be doing on 3.73 the feasibility of things like putting solar on the landfill, like doing large scale composting to make better use and higher value out of our green waste to get into something that Councillor Wegener that's making biochar out of wooden surfboards and to look at things like anaerobic digestion to turn waste into energy and to look at how we can productively use methane gas and methane is I think something like two hundred and eighty percent more potent than carbon dioxide as a climate gas so we have that whole big thing around waste which is going to be an increasing part of our focus but we also have recently the fact that we know that Kabi Kabi have been acknowledged as the Traditional Custodians of the country in which we stand and which we now share custodianship with and we've got operational plans about to continue to work with them to look at their cultural heritage to look at how we preserve their indigenous values and to look at how that makes residents and visitors life lives richer. That's leads into the next one which is one of the big strategies and plans we'll do this term is we've committed to implementing the and completing the Destination Management Plan year. And finally, on a more positive note, you'll see in section 4.8 quite a lot of those initiatives around implementing what we've said we'll do for climate change at a regional level, at a coastal level, but also to invest in disaster management and building resilience because more and recovering from disasters is not something that occurs occasionally. It's that's ongoing and preparing our community to be less impacted both economically, personally and from a safety perspective from what is happening in the world today and what will continue at an accelerated rate as a result of climate change. That's just a snapshot of what's in the operational plan but it gives you a claim that the business of local government is quite a diverse one.