December 16, 2014
The South Burnett Regional Council seems likely to return to holding general meetings every three weeks in 2015.
The Council has been meeting on a monthly basis since May 2012.
At the time, Mayor Wayne Kratzmann said the previous three-week meeting system had become unworkable and produced poor quality outcomes.
This was because the short gap between meetings and the need to close off agenda items a week beforehand often left Council officers with too little time to prepare reports. This had resulted in some reports not being delivered to meetings because there was nothing new to report in such a short space of time.
The biggest flaw in three-weekly meetings, though, lay in the delivery of Council’s financial reports. The Mayor said it was common practice to process and report on any month’s transactions one to three weeks after that month had concluded.
But rolling three-weekly meetings meant financial reports could fall in any part of the month, which in turn meant that many financial reports given to Council under the former system were inadequate.
Today the Mayor said that monthly meetings had turned out to be imperfect as well.
“We had been holding meetings on the third Wednesday of each month since May 2012, and now hold them on the fourth Wednesday,” the Mayor said.
“The problem with this system is that some months can have five Wednesdays in them, and when this occurs there can be a five-week break between meetings.
“This can lead to hold-ups in approving developments or giving the go-ahead to important projects, and that’s not acceptable either.”
The Mayor believes the Council’s new accounting system, which has been installed and “bedded down” this year, would be capable of overcoming previous shortfalls in financial reporting.
And while increasing the meeting schedule would create more work for staff, the Mayor said he was confident they would be able to meet the challenge.
“What it means is that we’ll have about 15 general meetings next year instead of 12,” he said.
The move is expected to be voted on at the Council’s December meeting on Wednesday.
- Related article: Council Changes Start Early
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UPDATE December 17: As predicted, South Burnett councillors voted unanimously to adopt a three-week meeting schedule in 2015, commencing with the Council’s first general meeting on Wednesday, January 28.
