Finance director Stephanie Speedy and general manager Warwick Winn will lead three sessions to explain Eurobodalla Shire Council’s financials to residents. Photo: Eurobodalla Shire Council.
A series of community sessions is planned for April as a South Coast council faces a “serious and ongoing deficit”.
Eurobodalla Shire Council general manager Warwick Winn said the sessions would examine the council’s financial position.
“Last year in May we publicly outlined our financial situation, and that is, we are facing a serious and ongoing deficit in our general fund,” Mr Winn said.
“Almost 12 months on, we’re ready to explain to the community the strategy we’ve developed and the actions we’ve taken already to step our way out of this.”
The sessions will be held at locations across the shire and be attended by Mr Winn, finance director Stephanie Speedy and Mayor Mathew Hatcher.
Mr Winn said there had been ongoing work to stabilise council’s budgets and find a path to financial sustainability.
“We are focused on core business and have managed to reduce the operating deficit by carefully reprioritising and staging our annual work plans,” he said.
“We’re also using grant funds to support already programmed works and services, rather than adding extra projects to our to-do list.
“We’ll explain the internal budget reset conducted right across council early this year, the savings we’ve made and the service changes we’ll propose for 2024-25 as a result.”
Sessions will be held at Narooma Library on 9 April (Tuesday), Moruya Library on 11 April (Thursday) and Batemans Bay Library on 23 April (Tuesday).
People are invited to gather for light refreshments from 5:15 pm, before the meetings start at 5:30 pm.
Mayor Mathew Hatcher said the general manager and council staff had the full support of councillors as they worked to balance the books and improve council’s financial situation.
“Councillors want to leave the organisation in better financial shape than we found it,” he said.
“I encourage residents to come along and hear firsthand from Warwick and Steph how we’re going about that.”
Each session will run for one hour, and bookings are not required.
Mr Winn and Ms Speedy will also host a further round of financial talks with the community in May.
Those sessions will focus on council’s draft 2024-25 budget while it is on public exhibition, and further details will be released shortly.
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