March 21, 2018
Cuts to community services are likely to continue next year as the South Burnett Regional Council looks for extra savings it can redirect into road maintenance.
On Wednesday, South Burnett Mayor Keith Campbell said while road maintenance is now the single biggest line item in the council’s budget, accounting for 42 per cent of annual expenditure, the amount of money being spent on roads is still not enough.
The problem has been made worse by cuts to the council’s Financial Assistance Grant (FAGs), which saw the South Burnett lose $2 million in funding between 2012 and 2014.
That cut was followed by a three-year freeze on FAGs grants, then a further cut when the freeze was lifted last July.
On Wednesday, Mayor Campbell said he acknowledged the council needed to put more money into road maintenance.
“Roads were an election issue and have been an issue ever since amalgamation,” Mayor Campbell said.
“Continuing to do as we’ve always done is not going to produce a satisfactory answer.”
The Mayor said this year the council had audited its Roads and Drainage department to get a better understanding of where the problems lay, and introduced several improvements.
It had also used its new high speed digital Road Asset Condition Assessment System to collect real time data on the region’s 3200km road network.
Every road had now been captured on film and assessed for surface roughness, potholes and drainage issues.
“The truth is there is insufficient money spent on road upgrades to satisfy ratepayers’ needs,” he said.
“Council’s current method of fixing roads is to do as much road distance with the amount of money provided in the Budget to ensure every area receives some attention.
“The result of this approach is that many roads are only fixed for the short term, not the long term.
“In other cases, some roads have had more money spent on them than should have been.”
The Mayor said the fundamental problem was the council needed to increase the amount of money it invested in roads, and that will mean funding for other areas of its annual Budget will need to be reduced.
“Budgets since amalgamation have tried to do many projects across so many fields to satisfy as many people as possible,” the Mayor said.
“What is needed to fix road upgrades in terms of dollars is now well understood by Councillors.
“We need to communicate this information to ratepayers so that they understand.”
