Council chief executive able to sign off on projects up to $1 million without council approval

Councillors voted on Tuesday, November 29 to double that limit, with a review scheduled in six months’ time, following debate.

The initial proposal put to council was a limit of $1.5 million, but councillors voted to keep the rise to $500,000.

Cr Geoff Dobson, who put forward the motion, said increased costs of jobs, materials, labour and insurance for works meant bureaucratic hold-ups could cause delays of 11 weeks in getting projects ready.

He said lifting the maximum amount the chief executive could sign off on would slash that time to three weeks for projects costing less than $1 million.

“All these costs rise on a weekly or monthly basis; if we’re going to hold up contracts which have to come before council, I think it’s a waste of time,” Cr Dobson said.

Cr Seema Abdullah, who seconded the motion, said it would improve efficiency.

She said “we have controls in place” to ensure spending did not get out of hand.

However, Cr Fern Summer voiced opposition to the move and said the proposal came as a “shock”.

Cr Summer said she would have preferred the amount to increase to $750,000 instead of $1 million and said she didn’t believe there was a need to raise the limit so high.

She was also concerned by lack of oversight on projects.

“It’s our job to hold this organisation to account,” Cr Summer said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the capital works budget follows the operational budget (in increasing).

“We don’t know who the request has come from; we were told it has come from industry but we’ve seen nothing in writing which has requested this rise.”

Cr Summer said councillors had requested more information and clarification about how much raising the limit would reduce bureaucracy, but hadn’t had answers by last Tuesday’s meeting.

“There are so many holes in this proposal, I hope it sinks to the bottom of a deep lake and stays there,” she said.

Cr Anthony Brophy said it would bring council in line with other councils across regional Victoria, many of which — such as Latrobe, Mildura and Macedon — allow chief executives to approve projects worth $1 million or less before requiring approval from councillors.

Cr Greg James said he appreciated the concerns of Cr Summer but said a number of projects were held up by bureaucracy.

“This delegation hopefully speeds up the process of contracts,” he said, before highlighting that there would be a review in six months’ time.

Cr Sam Spinks said she still had queries about the number of projects that would be sped up, with councillors having been told it could cut approval delays for projects between $500,000 and $1 million.