September 19, 2012
Considerations about when Council offices should be closed over the festive season led to an excited outburst at the SBRC’s monthly meeting today, with Cr Barry Green saying he thought a proposal to close all Council offices for two weeks was “a disgrace”.
“I am totally opposed to this,” Cr Green said. “Ratepayers will not be able to get any service for two weeks.
“This situation gets worse every year – it’s an absolute disgrace!”
The Council was debating when it should shut down for the festive season and when Council staff should hold their annual Christmas party.
Mayor Wayne Kratzmann told the Councillors that ever since the introduction of a nine-day fortnight, staff were less willing to take annual holidays. This was because they had the opportunity to take lots of short holidays during the year instead.
This meant that accrued staff entitlements were growing quickly. And so was the cost to ratepayers.
He explained that if a staff member went up a grade or was promoted, then all their accrued entitlements went up to their new pay rate at the same time.
So it was in everyone’s interests that Council had a “shut down” to force staff to take a vacation and use up some of their entitlements. And the Christmas-New Year period was probably the best time to do it.
However, Cr Green said he didn’t agree and that two weeks was simply too long to shut Council’s offices down.
Cr Kathy Duff said she supported Cr Green, pointing out that last year the region had problems with grass growth over the holiday period because of wet weather and that it took some time after Council resumed work to get everything tidy again.
She also questioned who would clean Council facilities during a two-week shut down?
Cr Keith Campbell concurred.
“It’s a big ask for our communities and one I don’t think we should be asking,” he said.
“I have to agree with Cr Green – I don’t know if our community can live with this.”
Cr Kratzmann pointed out that Council still maintained a skeleton staff to handle emergencies during any shut-down period and that staff were also on call.
Cr Damien Tessmann said he agreed with Cr Green but also supported the arguments advanced by the Mayor.
“Let’s give it a run and see what happens,” he said.
The Mayor then suggested that rather than close all five offices, perhaps an acceptable compromise might be to close four (Blackbutt, Nanango, Wondai and Murgon) but leave Kingaroy operating over the shut-down period with a skeleton staff.
“I’m only nominating Kingaroy because it’s central to everything,” he said.
Cr Green said that he didn’t think this was ideal but he was willing to settle on that for the moment to try the idea out.
Council offices will now close around noon on Friday, December 21, for the annual staff Christmas party, and all offices will re-open on Monday, January 7, 2013.
The Kingaroy office will be open on all days except weekends or gazetted public holidays.
