Murray River Council heads towards ‘cash cliff’

Despite the bleak picture painted, the motion to make an special rate variation application to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal was defeated after Mayor Frank Crawley’s vote was decisive in a tied vote of 4-4.

Councillors Neil Gorey, Nikki Cohen and Geoff Wise joined the mayor in voting against the motion.

A foreshadowed motion was also put forward to extend the consultation period and to defer the formal IPART application to February 2025.

This motion was also defeated, with only three councillors voting in favour. The councillors that voted in favour were Frank Crawley, Neil Gorey and Ann Crowe.

After both motions were defeated, onlookers in the room applauded.

Some councillors took the opportunity to discuss their distress at the future financial situation facing Murray River Council, including Tom Weyrich.

“Two and a half years ago, when the words ‘council’ and ‘broke’ were mentioned,” he said.

“I nearly had a seizure at that meeting because for 17 years prior to that ... being broke was not something that was part of the vocabulary.

“I’m still shocked that we are in this position and how quickly it’s come upon us.”

Cr Weyrich claimed the amalgamation that occurred was partly to blame for where council found itself.

“This has been a slow burn since 2017, since amalgamation. I’ve been steadfastly against amalgamation from day one,” Cr Weyrich said.

The meeting came after a revenue taskforce was created in April 2022 in an attempt to find in-house options to improve the financial situation.

Despite voting against both motions, Cr Cohen said something needed to be done to safeguard the future of Murray River Council.

“I don’t like it. I don’t want to do it, but obviously we have to look at some sort of way of making ourselves sustainable,” she said.

“The last thing we want is to become economically unviable.”

Another option put forward during the meeting was for council to look into selling assets.

Cr Wise claimed council had more assets than most others.

“This council owns 350 assets, and a lot of councils only own about 120, 150. We’ve got more assets lying around this town than you could ever believe,” he said.

Although Mr Dodds agreed that this should be looked into, he said it was only a short-term solution.

“It’s not an immediate (financial) hit (coming). It’s more of a medium- to longer-term hit,” he said.

“My gut feeling is the whole thing will be wrapped up inside four years, but we won’t get a real good head of steam until after about 18 months or two years.”

He said he believed there would be pushback about the selling of assets as well.

“The challenge is that everyone always will want council to reconcile assets until it’s one of theirs. So it’s going to be a really difficult thing,” Mr Dodds said.

Cr Crawley said council should expect future reports from Mr Dodds regarding its ongoing financial viability.