April 27, 2023
South Burnett Regional Council will spend an estimated $112,322 to erect and decorate eight Christmas trees around the region this year.
The cost of mounting community Christmas trees was outlined at a meeting last December when Cr Kirstie Schumacher asked how much it cost Council to erect trees in Blackbutt, Nanango, Kingaroy, Wondai, Murgon and Proston.
Staff told the meeting the operational cost (ie. staff labour) to mount and decorate the six trees was $40,322 in 2022.
But this week, Councillors voted to add a further $72,000 to this year’s bill by agreeing to erect two new trees in Hivesville and Kumbia, and replace Murgon’s tree after it fell into disrepair.
Staff estimated the cost of making the three new trees – and building footings to hold them in place – was $42,000.
They also estimated $30,000 would need to be spent to decorate the new trees.
The money will be drawn from an underspend in the 2022-23 Capital Building account.
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Complaints about the conduct of South Burnett councillors during the past 27 months have blown an estimated six-figure hole in the SBRC’s budget.
According to the Council’s Complaints Register, 34 complaints have been lodged against SBRC Councillors since January 2021.
The majority of the complaints relate to social media posts and nearly all of them have been dismissed.
A single complaint was found to have some substance but was so trivial the OIA elected to advise the Councillor how to avoid repeating the same error in future.
Complaints ranged from conduct in meetings to interactions with residents, but most focussed on social media posts.
Under the Local Government Act, the cost of investigating complaints is borne by Council.
southburnett.com.au was told in December 2020 that every complaint lodged with Council costs ratepayers about $10,000 to process.
If this figure still holds true, the SBRC is out-of-pocket at least $340,000 for complaints lodged during the past few years.
Privacy rules means the public will never know who lodged the complaints.
[UPDATED with correction]
