ASININE ASSET ACCOUNTING (go that extra mile but not on York’s assets.)

IT IS JUST LIKE WINNING ‘LOTTO’ ……One POWERBALL and you could get a job as a Senior Local Government Officer with one of the 100-plus Rural, Regional and Remote Shire Councils in WA- York.

What can you win? Normally a salary placing you in at least the top 5 per cent of wage  earners in Western Australia, relocation and rental assistance, fully maintained vehicle or access to one, mobile phone laptop and landline payed for, probable use of a corporate credit card for meals, entertainment and sundry items, travel and further education allowances, your contract fully paid out even if you are totally useless- and you are hardly likely to be answerable to anyone important who is going to complain about your performance to anyone important.

It is usually a 37.5 hour week, no weekend rosters and with the Christmas-New Year break when many others engaged in community and customer services are working their butts off.

Any ‘further education allowance’ is a bit of a furphy because you do not really need any relevant tertiary qualifications to reach the council employee pinnacles outside of the senior management level of city councils.

In the past travel allowances have been used to attend meetings and functions that bear no relevance what-so-ever to any local community wants, needs and aspirations. It is usually a holiday when you are pretending to be working.

The Shire Councillors are highly unlikely to know what you are really up to unless they are actually told about what you cannot hide through classifying it as confidential information and it is almost impossible to be charged with any form of non-compliance under the WA Local Government Act, 1995. (Councillors are prohibited from having any direct involvement in the day-to-day running of shire business other than by being informed of such matters by the CEO- at his discretion.)  

If it gets a little too hot in the council’s gourmet kitchen, you resign taking all your massive entitlements and then get WALGA to promote you as an outstanding administrator to some other council whose members either do not or cannot read their daily newspaper about your financial destruction of another town.

You are at very long odds to be charged by WA Police with a criminal offence and the WA Corruption and Crime Commission, often called the three- C- circus, has had more mismanagement and corruption within its own ranks than successful prosecutions.

You are at even longer odds to be made accountable by your ratepayers because your Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) within your contract do not specifically qualify and quantify the results you must achieve. There are no performance requirements such as you must reduce community asset debt by at least $3 million per annum for the term of your contract, help increase tourist numbers by 20,000 per annum or the town’s overall commercial profitability by 10 per cent each Financial Year.

And, of course, the actual terms of your contract are normally withheld from ratepayers and any form of public scrutiny.

Some Councillors are unlikely to complain about your performance to anybody as you were either employed directly by Council or it approved your employment.

Senior Local Government administrators often feel the need to have at least one personal,  well paid ‘mini-strator’/manager/assistant for each major (and minor) role they undertake.

York is no exception.
Executive Manager, Suzie Haslehurst, has the YRCC asset/ liability as one of her responsibilities. She will soon have the assistance of the Asset Management Officer as well as the support of CEO Paul Martin who has overall responsibility for everything and the YRCC Manager who is obviously in charge of running the YRCC. Then there is Paul Crewe and the Planning Officer.

Executive Manager, Paul Crewe, who has Asset Planning and Asset Maintenance as part of his portfolio-also will have the assistance of the Asset Management Officer as well as CEO, Paul Martin, the YRCC Manager, the Manager Works and Services, the Planning Officer and the support of Suzie Haslehurst.

The basic requirements to be an Asset Management Officer on the Shire of York’s Official Website is to be motivated, organized, able to cope with multiple projects and a team player, similar to the advertised requirements for a junior staff member at Hungry Jacks.

You also have to be able ‘to maintain relationships with the community and stakeholders to achieve positive outcomes for the organization’. Unless the emphasis has changed dramatically York’s community is the major stakeholder and the positive outcomes should be on behalf of the community as the stakeholders- not the organization.

The full position description can be found on the Shire of York’s website www.york.wa.gov.au. But possibly not.

The advertisement is for one position only, yet the website advisory rabbits on about ‘the successful person for ‘each role’ meaning it has not been proof-read for mistakes. It is a timely reminder that if you cannot ensure all your public information is correct then how can you administer a $9 million per annum organization? (If you cannot handle the ‘small stuff’ the ‘big stuff’ can be stuffed.)

So what will come next? Will Mr. Crewe need the able assistance of a Capital Works Controller and, Ms. Haslehurst, the support of an Administration and Governance Support Supervisor? (With Paul Martin as the executive backstop when required? supported by another half-dozen new officers?)

You can make up dozens of plausible, important sounding names for new positions as you go along with no real need for them or performance parameters to justify them, other than to Council who may be hijacked into thinking they are necessary.

It may well be the case that the more employees a Shire Council has- the higher the pay grade for the executive management?

The most annoying part is why the new Asset Management Officer position should be necessary!
                                                                                                                                                            
It is because, since 2011, the Shire of York has not complied with an official local government edict to create and maintain a Local Government Asset Management Policy, Local Government Asset Management Strategy or a definitive Shire of York, Local Government Asset Register.

THE WAY IT'S GOING TO BE

Instead it has turned long standing assets into huge financial liabilities by redirecting funding from established assets into new assets which are also now major liabilities- with the ratepayers bearing the brunt of every single, expensive, past mistake.

Mistakes must come to an end- and the best, in fact only time- is now! Future mistakes must not occur!

The Shire of York Council is investing around $3.3 million (or more) on behalf of the community in staff wages and benefits to get a mistake-free, positive socio-economic result in a reasonably generous time-frame.

With the acquisition of an Assets Management Officer you can add at least another $120,000 to the annual budget through wages, benefits, insurance, office space and ‘tools of trade’.

David Taylor.