PORT Stephens Council has released reports for Phase 0 and Phase 1 of ‘Our Funded Future’.

In June 2022, Council adopted its 2022-2023 Integrated Planning and Reporting documents which includes the Long Term Financial Plan.

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These documents stated Council’s concern with its ongoing financial sustainability, and sought to inform the community of mitigation strategies that were already being undertaken, and predicted an $80 million shortfall over the next ten years.

In conjunction with the adoption of the documents, the Council considered the Financial Sustainability Report.

The report detailed the financial history of the organisation, highlighted Council’s reliance on non-rate revenues and external shocks faced by the organisation during and continued in the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as efforts made by the organisation and Councillors to address financial sustainability to date.

The planned engagement approach consists of three phases:

Phase 0 – inform the community about Council’s financial situation and the current and short-term mitigation strategies that have been implemented to date.

Phase 1 – provide options to the community that create a financially sustainable Council.

Phase 2 – (dependent on outcomes of Phase 1) publicly exhibit options within the Integrated Planning and Reporting documents and further discuss the community’s views on the preferred path forward.

Phase 0 commenced on 29 June 2022 with Phase 1 following on 18 July 2022 and during this period an extensive communication and engagement program, including a wide variety of methods, was undertaken and concluded on 8 August 2022.

Community responses strongly supported non-rate income options for the Council, including seeking additional grant funding (94 percent), selling underperforming assets (59 per cent) and increasing fees and charges by ten percent (52 percent).

The option to remove the exemption on smart parking received the least consensus of all non-rate income options at 36 percent.

In case an option that provided additional rate income to enhance services was considered a preferred path forward, priorities were examined which resulted in approximately 95 percent priority for roads, followed by public spaces, grants, waterways and the environment.

Despite reports of extensive communication, Cr Leah Andersons stated she is frustrated.

“I do want to express my frustration that the Community engagement isn’t stronger, no matter how hard we try to engage with them.”

Cr Leah Anderson says that following her time on Council so far, she has noticed the majority of residents and ratepayers are not turning up to face-to-face engagement sessions, nor dialling into Facebook Live, nor Zoom meetings.

“It appears from the engagement outcomes so far, only a small portion of the community have either the time or the desire in what Port Stephens Council is doing with Our Funded Future and that worries me,” she said.

Cr Anderson urged residents to talk with friends, neighbours, family and work colleagues to spread the word of how vitally important it is for them to be engaged in ‘Our Funded Future’ community engagement sessions.

The engagement will be re-named going forward, due to confusion within the community, following an amendment by Councillor Giacomo Arnott.

By Tara CAMPBELL