OBERON Council finances were back on the agenda at the council meeting held on Tuesday.
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Councillor Clive McCarthy tabled a notice of motion to the ordinary meeting. Cr McCarthy moved that Oberon Council staff work on a program to bring in a balanced budget for the year 2014/15 and not dip into existing reserves to carry out operations in year 2014/15 unless a vote from council considers a project worthy.
Cr McCarthy asked why council is not running on a balanced budget and said there was a lot of misinformation “out there”.
“We have to budget or we face amalgamation. In June, we transferred over $700,000 from our reserves; we can’t keep dipping into our reserve money. The onus is on us to view budgets and cut back,” he said.
Cr Kathy Sajowitz said councillors were “getting mixed up with operational budget and the overall budget”.
“That’s why the money is there – to be used for purchase of plant and running costs,” she said.
Cr Ian Doney said he had stated that council needs a strategy to come back to a balanced budget and he is not interested in “squirrelling” council’s money away.
Council’s general manager Alan Cairney said there will be more financial information available to councillors at the Finance Committee Meeting to be held on August 28.
The motion was seconded by Cr Doney and put to vote, but the motion was lost.