Never breached the Act?

Administrators appointed. What an amazing bookend to the term for Benalla Rural City Council.

Shortly after the election of the current council, chief executive officer Tony McIlroy informed council and the community that in his time at council, then almost a decade, it had never breached the Local Government Act.

Months Later after I reported a breach made at the first meeting of council the same was confirmed by a senior officer at the local government inspectorate.

What our then new councillors did at that early meeting was to approve for themselves an increase to their allowances beyond the level of increase approved by the Local Government Minister.

Only one councillor, my son Ross Jenkins, acted prior to the adverse finding by the inspectorate to repay this effective over payment.

This week, with just one full meeting remaining before going into caretaker mode, we saw in The Age and in the Benalla Ensign that council had failed to meet its obligations under the Local Government (Improved governance) Act 2015.

Mr McIlroy was quoted as saying, ‘‘A large number of councils have found it complex to implement’’.

That large number was reportedly 13. Thirteen of 79 across the state.

Certainly a larger number than the state government would prefer, however, let’s be honest, more than 80 per cent of councils got it right and ours is one of less than 20 per cent that did not.

Imagine the surprise of the gallery at last night’s meeting of the Council Planning and Development Committee to hear from general manager development and environment Veronica Schilling that council had also breached the Local Government Act in the manner it had procured services for the Landfill and Resource Recovery Centre cell-construction project.

Good governance and never breached the Act. Really? —Matt Jenkins, Benalla (Mr Jenkins is standing as a candidate in the forthcoming local council election.)