New CEO promises spending overhaul, better community consultation
By Mitch Gaynor
Sunshine Coast Council’s new CEO, John Baker, is set to significantly overhaul council spending while also resetting the relationship between local government and community groups in the face of significant financial constraints.
The budgetary upheaval was revealed in Mr Baker’s first official engagement in the hinterland at the Maleny District Sports and Recreation Club AGM on 10 April.
Mr Baker, a former KPMG executive and Mornington Peninsula Shire Council boss, said he recognised that the council needed to be more “innovative” and “courageous”, as part of its spending program – firstly by forcing departments to start with a blank sheet of paper as part of a zero-based budgeting strategy next financial year.
“We haven’t got very much money at the moment,” Mr Baker (pictured) said.
“It is blindingly obvious that we’ve over-loved certain areas and under-loved others … so I need to recast the capital program.
“Next year we’re starting with a blank sheet of paper, and then we start allocating.
“That doesn’t mean I’m not going to be maintaining and renewing assets, but it does mean that when we look at our new capital program, we’re going to start thinking about how you distribute that more effectively than we have done.”
Mr Baker said transforming the relationship between council and community groups was a key component of his budget strategy.
“Community should have input on financial decisions,” he said.
“We’ve got to move from a parent-child relationship to being peers.
“Right now, it feels like the council gives ‘sweets’ when it feels like it, but says ‘no’ most of the time.
We need to be respectful equals.”
“I do believe that there are mechanisms where we can make your dollars go further if we listen to you about what it is that we can really do, and I don’t think we do that very well.”
Key strategies include establishing citizens’ panels, improving consultation processes and exploring community-led initiatives that could reduce infrastructure costs.
Mr Baker said he believed local groups could often deliver projects more efficiently than traditional council approaches.
“The ideas come from groups like (MDSRC), not from us sitting in a room,” he said.
“And we need to find mechanisms to make community dollars go further by actually listening.”
He said the council would particularly focus on supporting volunteer-driven projects.
“If clubs can build and maintain infrastructure, that’s incredibly attractive to us,” Mr Baker noted.
“Our biggest cost isn’t building things – it’s maintaining them.”
Mr Baker said he also planned to address the challenges of managing growth, with the Sunshine Coast expecting 500,000 residents by 2040.
“We’ll need to have difficult conversations about where and how we accommodate growth,” Mr Baker said.
“They are about climate-change risks, about where we can and cannot build, about how we accommodate growth while preserving what makes this place special.”
He said there were also looming challenges in the face of climate change, particularly in coastal areas where future environmental risks could compromise existing development plans.
Council is expected to hand down its 2025/26 budget in June.
mitch@gcnews.com.au