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The cost of the September 2024 local government election for the Central Coast Council is likely to cost upwards of $2.75 million including the cost of a referendum aimed to reduce the number of councillors.
By Jacquelene Pearson
Rik Hart, Central Coast Council’s Administrator, is likely to resolve to pay the NSW Electoral Commission around $2.75 million to run the local government areas first election of councillors in seven years.
It’s a user-pays system in NSW and any council election that costs more than $250,000 has to be put out to tender, which is why Central Coast Council asked for bids from the NSW Electoral Commission and another corporate election provider.
The bids from the two providers have been kept confidential because of commercial concerns.
Mr Hart is also likely to push ahead with a referendum to reduce the number of councillors from 15 to nine at the same time as the election. The outcome of that referendum would not come in to play until the next, 2028 local government election.
Some within the community are still holding on to the hope that a change of state government on March 25 could result in an earlier election for Central Coast Council but that is unlikely.
Shadow Minister for the Central Coast, Mr David Harris MP, has made public statements that an early election would not be feasible. Labor’s official policy is, however, to assist communities whose councils were forced to amalgamate in 2016 to at least have the opportunity to hold a poll or referendum on whether they want to stay amalgamated or demerge.
A report to be considered by Mr Hart at Central Coast Council’s February meeting on Tuesday evening has recommended that he selects the NSW Electoral Commission and not a commercial election provider, to manage Council’s 2024 election.
“Based on the quotes received and the points outlined above, it is recommended that Council seek to engage the NSWEC to conduct its 2024 ordinary election as they provided the lowest quote of the two electoral service providers being an estimated total of $2,787,493.00 (including GST),” the report from Council’s Corporate Services Directorate said.
According to the report, under section 296AA of the NSW Local Government Act 1993 Council is required to make a decision on how its ordinary election in September 2024 is to be administered by 13 March 2023.
“Quotes were sought from two election administrators (included as confidential attachments), one of which was the NSWEC,” the staff report said.
“Both NSWEC, and the private election administrator detailed the difficulty in providing reliable election costs estimates at this stage, given the ongoing economic uncertainty prevailing in the State, and the requirement under the Act for any resolution pertaining to engagement of an election provider to be considered and passed not more than 18 months prior to a local government election.
“Accordingly, it is most likely that the estimate as proposed for acceptance in this report, will not be the final cost of the 2024 election and referendum.”
If Council does not decide on how its ordinary election in September 2024 is to be administered by 13 March 2023, it will be in breach of the Act.
To undertake a referendum as part of the 2024 ordinary election, Council will incur additional costs which equate to at least an additional $230,371.00.
Based on an approximate population of 350,000 people on the Central Coast, the number of constituents per councillor on a 15-person council would be 23,333 per councillor.
Reducing councillor numbers to nine would mean each councillor would be responsible for looking after approximately 38,900 residents. That would be the equivalent of one elected councillor taking care of a town the size of Bathurst.
