| By The Editor
Has the go in Bendigo gone?
In their run up to the November polls, Bendigo councillors have opted for a safe, small-projects-only capital works budget for the coming year.
In fact, many of the items designated capital expenditure would be possibly better placed in the repairs and maintenance section – road re-seals, for example,
account for several million dollars and are definitely not new construction.
When it is all boiled down, the $40 million-plus allocated is about half maintenance and half new work.
Over the past decade the council’s capital expenditure budget has progressively changed and now includes many items which once were called recurrent expenditure.
Said to be done to meet tenuous
accounting guidelines, this practice also serves to disguise a rapid rise in overhead expenses.
For a number of years after council amalgamation in 1996, the council managed to allocate around $20 million – about half its total budget – to genuine capital works. Now, 12 years later, in dollar terms the figure is about the same.
However, recurrent, maintenance and overhead exenditure has risen alarmingly and now appears to account for more than 70 per cent of the council’s total spend.
Bendigo is not alone in this. Rules
imposed by the state government have driven the council to a culture of ‘ticking boxes’, while an almost total aversion to borrowing money means major projects don’t rate a mention.
None of the important projects of the past would have been undertaken if the money to build them had to come from the current account.
The philosophy used to be that central authorities borrowed money, and future generations who benefited from the work helped to pay for it.
Of course, there is good and bad borrowing and Bendigo has had its share of bad borrowing in recent times.
The largest amount of money borrowed by the council since amalgamation was to finance its unfunded liability of the staff superannuation scheme; effectively money borrowed to pay wages.
While this would have been enough to send an average business broke, councils also have a wonderful advantage in being able to determine how much they want to spend and then alter the rates and charges to get the income.
So what has been achieved over the past four years? The only project of any consequence conceived and constructed during the current council term is the upgrade of Hargreaves Mall.
Unfortunately Bendigo has acquired a reputation for acquiring strategies and not much else.
No risks here in this budget. Not in an election year. No tram-around-the-lake project for this lot. Nothing to excite and inspire.
Anyone hoping for big-ticket items like a new office building to provide decent
accommodation for council staff, a new theatre, bus terminal, new car-park, or perhaps even something basic like a new tip, will be disappointed.
Where has the go in Bendigo gone?
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