By DANE LILLINGSTONE
A HEATED council meeting resulted in allegations of misconduct being brought up in relation to the allotment of time councillors had to vote on the final Southern Downs Regional Council 2015-’16 budget.
Councillor Jamie Mackenzie argued that they were expected to be given a minimum of 14 days to review the budget but actually got two.
He then put forward an unsuccessful motion to seek independent legal advice in the future as recommended by the Acting Director-General of the Department of Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning.
The mayor, however, noted that the budget process happened over nine months, not two days.
Cr Mackenzie is adamant that council members did not see the budget in a form capable of adoption until 29 June and only a couple days away from the final vote.
“For councillors to comment properly on the final budget papers, we needed 14 days as outlined in legislation. Perhaps, this is misconduct when we were not offered that in 2015?” he said.
There was some confusion in the meeting when Mackenzie presented a private email exchange, seeking independent advice on the budget.
Cr Meiklejohn was unhappy that the emails were not presented to council earlier and that they had been presented out of context.
“We had months of discussion before the final budget papers were presented,” Cr Meiklejohn said.
“I don’t know what political points Cr Mackenzie is trying to get here.”
The issue continued after the meeting with both Cr Mackenzie and the SDRC releasing further statements.
“Our role as councillors in my view is to scrutinise council business. It is satisfying that council officers have agreed to seek independent legal advice as necessary in accordance with the Director General’s wishes and not rely on verbal advice from departmental officers. Let’s hope the focus of the mayor and CEO is instead on addressing council’s debt and questionable financial position,” Cr Mackenzie said.
The letter in question centres on Cr Mackenzie corresponding with Acting Director-General Department of Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning Stephen Johnson.
Mr Johnson’s response said, “I wish to highlight the fact that the department does not provide legal advice to councils or councillors. Instead, any advice provided by the department is general in nature only and where legal advice is required on a particular matter, council should seek that advice through its own legal provider.”
“Accordingly, in this instance, any request for legal advice should have been directed to council’s legal representative if there was doubt about the processes leading up to the adoption of the 2015/2016 budget complied with the legislative requirements.
“My view is that the consideration of the budget is an internal matter for the council, noting it does require a majority of the elected councillors to approve it. I note that council’s budget was passed for the 2015/2016 financial year and council should now focus on implementing this budget for its community.”
SDRC addressed the claims of misconduct and said “SDRC wishes to state clearly that there have been no acts of misconduct undertaken in the development of the 2015-’16 Budget. Council also wishes to indicate that it will continue to seek advice of a general nature from staff at the Department of Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning.”
