The Facts

FACT 9:

Benchmarking Tenterfield Shire Council Performance relative to OLG Group 10

OLG (Office of Local Government) Group 10 is a group of 23 large rural shires in NSW that the government has categorised as being similar for comparison purposes. When you look at Tenterfield shire on www.yourcouncil.nsw.gov.au you will find it shows you how Tenterfield compares with the entire Group 10. It gives some validity to assessing how your council is performing.

However, when we benchmark, we have to be careful that we compare apples with apples - not apples with oranges. Comparing Tenterfield with the average of the whole 23 shires is a reasonable start but not ideal. These 22 other shires are not the same as Tenterfield. There are larger and smaller populations and towns, and larger and smaller land areas. Some have more and some have less roads than Tenterfield etc.

If we want to get more valid comparisons, we can use subsets of the Group 10 shires.
For example:

There is a group of shires with populations within plus or minus 10% of Tenterfield's.
There is a group that has similar road length to maintain.

TSC has chosen a subset of near-neighbouring shires (Glen Innes, Gwydir, Kyogle and Uralla) when they show rate comparisons.

There is nothing wrong with using subsets of the Group 10 to compare with Tenterfield – unless they are being used to distort the comparison or take attention away from something you DON'T want to talk about.

For example, TSC is correct in saying that Tenterfield ratepayers generally pay much lower rates than those in Glen Innes, Gwydir, Kyogle and Uralla. Are these shires the best to compare with Tenterfield? Possibly, possibly not; but they support council’s argument.

But we note that council didn’t choose to compare our rates with Temora, Upper Lachlan, Walgett and Warrumbungle – four other Group 10 councils with much lower rates than Tenterfield. Are these shires the best to compare with Tenterfield? Possibly, possibly not; this is why it is important to choose the right shires to compare with.

However, the lower rates in Tenterfield by comparison to Glen Innes, Gwydir, Kyogle and Uralla is a convenient fact the council is promoting to try and convince us that the solution to their financial situation is to increase rates. This is the old magician’s sleight-of-hand – they want us to, "Look at this, here! – No, no don't look over there! - Look at this!" Because when we "look over there" we find facts that council is uncomfortable with...

• WE FIND: When you add the cost of services such as water, sewer and waste, Tenterfield already costs over $500 a year more to live in than Uralla, Glen Innes and Gwydir - and is only $17 below Kyogle at $2921 per year. NOW ADD ON the extra $689 that council wants out of your pocket as a rate rise! Tenterfield likely will be the most expensive place to live in the entire Group 10 – but the council don’t want to talk about that.

WE FIND: Our money being wasted – but the council don’t want to talk about that.

WE FIND: A population that is older and poorer than most in the group and can't afford massive rate rises – but the council don’t want to talk about that.

So, let’s do some apples-to-apples comparisons on the Tenterfield Shire Council’s performance. In this post, we will continue discussing their overspending on Governance and Administration.

GOVERNANCE AND ADMINISTRATION SPENDING

The ratepayers of Tenterfield are paying way too much to be governed and administered. It doesn't matter which way you cut it or how the council spins it. At some point they must answer difficult questions about where the money comes from and where it goes to.

If we look at the cost of Governance & Administration, we see that TSC spends more money ($5.5M) on it than 17 of the 23 shires in Group 10 – even though several of them have populations over 9000 and areas up to 45,000 sq km. For example:

Cobar, with an area of 45,579 sq km spends only $3.25M.
Forbes, with 9,906 people spends only $4.22M.
Uralla, with 6,012 people spends only $1.95M.
Wentworth spends about the same as Tenterfield – but the council there has 26,256 sq km and 7053 people to look after.

Even the shires with population densities lower than Tenterfield have lower costs per person. There are seven such shires. Their average population density is 0.44 people per sq km (Tenterfield is 0.9). So Tenterfield has more than twice as many people per sq km as they do to pay for the cost of Governance and Administration. BUT – these shires' average spending per person on Governance and Administration is $764, while Tenterfield’s is $834.

Do your own research and draw your own conclusions about TSC performance, efficiency and value-for-money on their Governance and Administration spending.

The qualifier to this post is that the data used is two years old. TSC has not yet presented comparable data for FY 2020/21 and 2021/22. They might surprise us and be able to show how much the cost has fallen…

The above chart compares Tenterfield to the same group of shires that TSC uses when they want to tell us that our rates are low.

FACT 8:

The Tenterfield Shire Council Governance & Administration Expenditure in pictures:

FACT 7:

The Tenterfield Shire Council Governance & Administration Expenditure per capita has risen as follows:

2013/14 $33.41

2014/15 $33.24

2015/16 $33.21

2016/17 $42.60

2017/18 $336.24

2018/19 $373.00

2019/20 $834.24

That is how much each person paid the council each year to be "governed and administered"!

How much do you reckon it is costing each of us now?

Data Source: The NSW Office of Local Government yourcouncil.nsw.gov.au

(And that is after we have already paid for all the actual expenses for water, sewer, environment, roads, bridges, parks, footpaths, community services etc etc.)

FACT 6:

What does the council spend our rates money on - and do they spend it wisely?

We can compare Tenterfield Council with a group of 23 NSW large rural shires of comparable size and population.

In 2020, the money spent per capita was:

Governance & Administration

Tenterfield: Group average:

$834.24 $642.70

Community Services & Education, Housing & Community Amenities, Recreational & Cultural

Tenterfield: Group average:

$570.52 $830.30

Other Services and Library

Tenterfield: Group average:

$270.70 $580.40

Data Source: The NSW Office of Local Government www.yourcouncil.nsw.gov.au

FACT 5: Benchmarking Residential Rates, Fees & Charges

Tenterfield Council likes to tell us that rates here are less than Uralla, Glen Innes, Gwydir and Kyogle. This is true – but it’s not the full story – because we pay more than just rates to Council. Have a look at the 2020 data for the total we pay, compared to residents in the other Shires. Our fees and charges have just gone up again in Tenterfield - and the Council now propose that residential rates more than double to $1354 over the next 3 years!

The Group Average figures shown are for the average of a group of 23 NSW shires of comparable size and population to Tenterfield.

FACT 4: Where our money has gone…

In 2018, TSC spent $4.48M on Community Services & Education, Housing & Community Amenities, Recreational & Cultural, and Other Services

By 2020, that had risen to $5.09M – a rise of just 13.5%

However, over the same 3-year period, Council spending on Governance & Administration more than doubled
– from $2.24M to $5.5M – a rise of over 145%

Logically, where do you think TSC should reduce spending before deciding to cut services?

Alternatively, perhaps if they cut services back to 2018 levels they can do the same with admin and save us $2.2M.

FACT 3: Benchmarking Farmland Rates

There are six other Large Rural shires in NSW (OLG Group 10) that have population densities (people/km2) that are lower than or slightly more than Tenterfield. They are Gwydir, Lachlan, Bland, Warrumbungle, Upper Lachlan and Narromine.

Of these six shires, four have a total number of Farmland Rate Assessments similar to Tenterfield (±25%). These four ‘most comparable’ shires are Gwydir, Lachlan, Bland and Warrumbungle.

The table below shows how their farmland rates compare to Tenterfield’s (2020 data).

FACT 2: Tenterfield has less roads to look after than many other shires.

So why do we pay so much more to maintain our roads?

FACT 1: Changes in TSC spending over the years 2018 to 2020

There is a gradual rise in spending on delivery of various services and looking after roads. A total increase of approx. 22%.

A huge reduction in spending on Public Order, Safety, Health from 2018 to 2019. Can anyone tell us what happened that year?

BUT – spending on Governance & Administration more than doubled in 2020! In fact, it went up by $3.0M (146%) in one year (that is, from approx. $500 to $1100 for each of us ratepayers). What happened; what benefit did we get for it; and what do you think it is now? And why shouldn’t it drop back to, say $600 per ratepayer?

Data Source: The NSW Office of Local Government www.yourcouncil.nsw.gov.au

Comparisons of the average from a group of similar councils (on the NSW govt website www.yourcouncil.nsw.gov.au) demonstrates that there is a significant opportunity to gain efficiencies and reduce debt: included here are key areas for your information:

* A NSW council group is determined firstly by whether they are Urban or Rural in nature, and then by population size and density.

The Latest CENSUS provides further details on the specifics

affecting the Tenterfield Shire and the resulting needs.

For example, the average age at 55 and the associated potential to produce income is a key indicator as well as the actual income figures show the POTENTIAL of the community to cope with the proposed 149% (over 10 years) RATE RISE.

Source: https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/LGA17400