We Bridgetown and Greenbushes ratepayers pay higher and higher rates every year, but seem to get less and less output or progress from our local government.
This bloated, out-of-control organisation we call 'the Shire' has become an industry in itself, continually employing more and more people.
If you can believe it, this bunch now pays itself in excess of $3 million a year in wages and entitlements! Three million dollars a year in wages alone, to organise the roads, rubbish and rates in a small community.
It gets even more ludicrous when you realise that this extraordinary amount of money doesn't even get the standard Council jobs done. Much of the actual work is being outsourced, costing us even more money!
A quick browse of the monthly accounts payable, which are presented to Council, is quite revealing...
The April accounts show in that month a total of $1,960 was paid to Antony Ballard for labour on some small maintenance jobs. Adam Jenkins was paid $2,420 to cut down and lop trees. Dion Steven got $1,963 for some "environmental works". An outside consultant was brought in to do some Building Surveyor work for $5,178. Even the street sweeping is outsourced, at a cost of $1,716 a month. These, I would have thought, are all tasks within the capacity of a $3milion dollar a year workforce.
So what on earth are all the Shire staff doing, while they are paying all this additional money to get the basic jobs done by others????
The complacency of the councillors who (hopefully) read these accounts every month is astonishing. |It doesn't seem to occur to them they have a responsibility to ratepayers to question what is going on, rather than simply patting the CEO on the back.
