The Trangie community voted against the special rate variation during a public consultation meeting on Tuesday night.
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Trangie residents gathered at the bowling club to meet with the Mayor Bill McAnally, General Manager Greg Lamont, Chief Financial Officer Yvonne Clarke and other members of council to discuss the potential rate increase for the next two financial years.
Council has proposed a 3.5 per cent increase on next year's rates on top of the usual CPI Rate Pegging of three per cent.
Council is currently consulting with the community as part of its application. It believes the rate increase is necessary to qualify for the Fit for the Future package proposed by the current state government.
"We're a stand-alone council and we've proved it. But we need to make these decisions before someone else does," Cr McAnally said.
The rate variation was not well received by a number of people at the Trangie consultation meeting.
Trangie resident Col Hamilton questioned whether Narromine Shire could work separately to the state government.
"What happens if you tell the State Government to get nicked and run your own show and we really scale back and run like a business?" he asked.
Cr McAnally said he didn't believe it would work on the rates the council currently received.
"Rates income revenue is $6.5 million and money from the state government in grants and contributions is around $10 million," CFO Mrs Clarke said.
Many Trangie residents questioned the council's systems and asked whether the council was running efficiently.
Resident Kevin Flynn put the question to the panel.
"The vibes I'm getting are all about efficiencies. I've studied this newsletter at length and once it mentions efficiencies. Yvonne mentioned it once in her address. We know the federal government is in debt of about $30 billion, the state government owes a lot of money and it's filtering through the system.
"It's exactly the same as any household, if you're spending more than what you're bringing in, something's got to give. I believe what Narromine Shire Council needs to do is have a really good look at the efficiencies," he said.
The majority of the crowd agreed with him.
Mrs Clarke outlined the special rate variation is one way council could accumulate the funds to be Fit for the Future. Other options include reducing services or selling non-core assets.
"What are the alternatives? Council can reduce services, always hard. What is an essential service to one part of the community is not to the other. Option two is sustaining our services but increasing our fees and charges, how much can we charge for the hire of a hall or using our facilities when it becomes too high and no one wants to use it at all?
"Another option is selling off the non-core assets. This will become a problem when you decide what is a non-core asset and who do we sell it to?" She asked.
Despite the negative reaction to the proposition Cr McAnally maintains it's the best option for council.
"The federal government has no money, the state government has no money and they're looking at us to maintain services. It's still a rate rise and it's a very hard thing to sell," he said.
The application will be made to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal next year and it has the power to reject the additional rate variation.
Cr McAnally encourages community members to make submissions regarding the variation to council so they can submit them with their application.
Public consultation meetings were held in Tomingley on Monday and Narromine yesterday.