Comparisons with other councils’ rates would be more relevant if it was a case of comparing apples with apples; in this context, if the total annual rate bills were to be compared and not just the base rates which in the Eurobodalla are less than 40 per cent of typical residential total annual rates and charges.

Council’s use of benchmarking is flawed anyhow – it usually makes comparisons with averages which lead to complacency, even mediocrity, whereas the proper use of benchmarking is to identify best performances and to emulate them.

An example of how flawed uses of benchmarking can “blow back” the “spin”: in council’s special rate variation application, in order to illustrate its cost containment efforts, council points out its average employee cost per FTE is $65,267 per annum is favourably lower in comparison with four other unnamed councils but elsewhere in the application this comparison isn’t used to illustrate the affordability of the increase in the shire, where in 2010 the average taxable income was $33,837.

This disparity of income levels will, I’m sure, be pointed out to IPART in submissions from ratepayers - if they care enough!

The worst, and most telling, conclusion reached from reading the spreadsheets forming part A of the application is that the 6.5 per cent variation is insufficient to solve council’s financial woes as it will reduce the deficit by only one-third over a 10-year period.

The numbers are staggering – a forecast deficit of $38.8 million if the variation is approved and $58.8 million if it’s not.

What a mess! I hope our councillors have read the application fully because ratepayers are entitled to hear directly from them, and not the staff, the answers to the questions they should  ask.

After all, it went ahead on their majority vote.

If I was at all cynical, and if there isn’t a cultural paradigm shift in council, I might say get ready for the next special rates variation application in a very few years’ time.

Jeff de Jager

Coila