Community groups in Whittlesea will be given an early-bird opportunity to have input into the council’s annual budget next year.
Councillors last week voted to establish a new process, which will bring forward suggestions for projects and services so the council can consider funding before the draft budget process begins.
To shortlist projects that will be put up for consideration by council officers, a special council committee has been established.
Councillors Ricky Kirkham, Mary Lalios and Steven Kozmevski nominated themselves as committee members and a majority of the 11 councillors confirmed their appointment. Their role will be to prepare a report recommending submissions for consideration by all councillors during budget deliberations.
But North ward councillor Rex Griffen described the committee set-up as “dodgy”, while Cr Sam Alessi said it would diminish the council’s transparency.
“It leaves it open for people to lobby the three members on the committee,” Cr Alessi said. “It goes behind closed doors, so who knows what will happen. I’m disgusted by it,” he said.
Cr Kris Pavlidis was of the same mind, saying the process could be seen to be controlled by a select few councillors.
“My concern is that the community needs to be given the best and fairest go, not judged by a handful of councillors,” she said. Despite their concerns, the new process will be in place later this year in preparation for next year’s budget.
Community submissions will be sought in November and December. They will then be assessed against a set of criteria and the strongest will be fed into draft budget considerations.
The draft will be made public in May.
Recently, community groups and individuals have submitted funding proposals in submissions to draft budgets; 22 of the 31 submissions to the 2014-15 budget were funding requests for new initiatives, such as cultural dances and sports facility upgrades, which had not been mentioned in draft budget proposals.
The council has acknowledged there is no other mechanism for proposing community initiatives on a yearly basis. A council report found this latest proposal “addresses the gap” in the current process which compromised opportunities for community requests.
