Budget

The St Peters Residents Association has, in recent years, repeatedly expressed strong concerns at the financial position of the City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters, particularly in relation to decisions made regarding the Payneham Memorial Swimming Centre.

These concerns have mostly been the result of Council's decision in late 2023 to continue with the redevelopment of the Payneham Pool.

The first draft of the budget was based on this 8% and showed a modest surplus.
However, at the Council meeting earlier this month, an increase of 8.5% was decided upon.

This is significantly above the 3% CPI the budget is based on, and well above all other metropolitan Adelaide Councils.

The St Peters Residents Association (SPRA) has, in recent years, repeatedly expressed strong concerns at the financial position of the City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters, particularly in relation to decisions made regarding the Payneham Memorial Swimming Centre (PMSC).

We again wish to express our anger at Council’s resulting debt position and the significant impact this is having on ratepayers due to the unacceptable level of rates now required to fund Council borrowings, mostly for the Swimming Centre. We implore residents to provide feedback.

While the overall rate revenue increase proposed is 8.5%, this will equate to a substantial 9.49% residential rate increase well over the large 7.44% for the previous year. The Residential Rate increase is over three times the 3.0% CPI used in the LTFP. In many cases the rates will be higher and could reach the maximum cap of 17.0%. Some residents will face an effective rate rise of 36.89% over two years!

SPRA have significant concerns about the rise in rate revenue and debt position of the council. SPRA would prefer to see council spending cut or deferred rather than rate rises at more than double the rate of inflation.

In our response to the draft of the 2023-2024 budget, SPRA noted concerns about the Payneham Memorial Swimming Pool and the significant increase in council debt represented by the Net Financial Liabilities Ratio (NFLR). Twelve months later the budget of the Payneham Memorial Swimming Pool has tripled to $60 million with the potential to increase further. The NFLR has increased from the previous peak of 117% to 162% and will still be above 130% in 2034.

Peter Fairlie-Jones has permitted SPRA to reproduce his budget consultation submission. He currently serves on the Audit Committees of 5 Councils and has this to say about the budget:

I remain very concerned not only about the proposed future rate increases and high debt levels, but also the resulting long term constraints on Council’s ability to respond to other community priorities and its capacity to respond to adverse events without even further pressure on rates and debt levels.

This deputation is made as a result of the decision made by Council in December 2023 to proceed with the Payneham Memorial Swimming Centre in spite of the cost being three times what was expected in 2022, and the effect this will have on the future Council finances.

In 2022 & earlier the pool cost was expected to be about $20m.

In the 2023/4 budget a figure of $24m was used although it was expected that tenders would be in the order of $30m.

We spoke to this when we addressed Council prior to last year’s budget.

The $60m cost is double that of the similar facilities currently being built at Salisbury.

SPRA have responded to the 2023-2024 Annual Business Plan & Budget.

Concerns raised include:

• Assumptions in budget (CPI: 2%, Borrowing rate: 2.4%)
• Net Financial Liability Ratio exceeding 100%
• $32.6 millon cost of Payneham Memorial Swimming Centre Redevelopment