FRANKSTON Council has decided to end its membership with the South East Councils Climate Change Alliance without undergoing community consultation.
Frankston Council passed its 2024/2025 budget last Monday. Councillor Suzette Tayler raised more than 30 late changes to the budget at last week’s meeting – the approved changes will see council withdraw from SECCCA and allocate funding to other climate change projects.
Other late changes included allocating $145,000 for works at the Centenary Park Golf Course toilets, and awarding a $40,000 grant to the Sandhurst Club to be dispensed equally over the next decade. Funding for an emergency relief fund and improvements to Lipton Reserve, Gamble Reserve, Lloyd Park, Ballam Park, Carrum Downs Recreation Reserve, and Ferndale Drive Reserve were also added into the budget last week.
The lengthy alternate motion was not included in the published agenda prior to the 3 June meeting. Some councillors said they only received the alternate proposal the night before the meeting was held. Councillor Sue Baker took issue with the late changes. She said she felt “blindsided” by the proposal and walked out of the chamber before the budget went to a vote.
“I feel I have been a proactive contributor to the budget process. I’m very committed to getting it right, recognising it’s not going to suit everybody and satisfy all councillors, but we have engaged in a process,” Baker said at last week’s meeting. She said the lengthy late changes are “not conducive to that collaborative, transparent, open approach which should involve the community with a number of different opportunities to comment on the content.”
Approximately $3 million has been shifted around in council’s budget through the late changes – around $657,000 of that redistributed money is scheduled to be spent in the 2024/2025 financial year. To fund the changes, money has been diverted from the local park upgrade program, the Forest Drive drainage pipe relining program, the Peninsula Reserve Oval 1 sports lighting project, the Banyan Fields pump track and playspace, and the Frankston Park masterplan implementation.
Councillor Tayler said that the council should withdraw from SECCCA so it can focus its spending on its own climate projects. “My alternate does recommend not to continue with SECCA because we now have a climate strategy. We are working towards real tangible actions that are identified in the climate strategy, not an extra layer of bureaucracy,” she said.
“Residents need positive outcomes from councillors. I believe the alternate is in the best interest for our community.”
The decision to withdraw from SECCCA, a coalition of nine Victorian councils which undertakes climate change projects, was not unanimous. Frankston councillor Claire Harvey serves as the SECCCA chair – she said “I just can’t accept that this would go through as a last minute alternate”.
“This is a significant decision that needs community input,” she said at last week’s meeting.
Harvey expressed concerns that the numerous late changes could put council in breach of the Local Government Act 2020. “Even if there’s a net positive result in terms of the council’s budget, to move funds somewhere means it’s come from somewhere else. Every time there’s a winner and naturally there is a loser,” Harvey said. “I just can’t support this in terms of the lack of transparency and capacity for the community to speak in the process.”
The budget alternate states that the funding which was allocated to SECCCA will instead be used to “expand council’s solar PV and electrification program for council facilities in the 2024/25 capital works program – an action that will directly contribute towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions and continue council’s progress on its commitment to 42 percent emissions reduction by 2030.” Frankston Council also agreed to cease “exploration of creating the South Eastern Council Biodiversity Network, given the cost-creep and required resources”.
The council budget as it appeared before the late changes confirmed that there would be a 2.75 per cent rate rise in the upcoming financial year – general rates are expected to rise by a little more than 2.4 per cent and rates collected on farm land will increase by more than 20 per cent. Frankston Council has projected a $14.21 million surplus. A little more than $58 million will be spent on council’s infrastructure projects in 2024/2025.
Council’s budget also reduced funding to Community Support Frankston. That decision was slammed by Frankston MP Paul Edbrooke in state parliament last week – he said “sources inside council and the Community Support Frankston annual report tell me that while CSF staff and volunteers have managed demand for assistance, which has doubled from 9500 in 2019 to 18,000 cases in 2023, the Community Support Frankston budget will be cut by $180,000. That is the equivalent of 5.6 full-time equivalent roles to two full-time staff, more than halving their staffing capacity.”
“I do not know who in their right mind would cut this capacity during a cost-of-living crisis, but our councils need to start listening,” he said. The final budget was passed with the support of councillors Tayler, Nathan Conroy, Kris Bolam, David Asker, and Glenn Aitken.