Politics & Council
20 November, 2023
Shire's staff retention challenge
THE wages bill for Loddon Shire Council has increased with extra staff employed as part of flood recovery in the region. The council’s annual report shows 189 people are on staff - a full-time equivalent of 141.7 - an increase of six on the...
THE wages bill for Loddon Shire Council has increased with extra staff employed as part of flood recovery in the region.
The council’s annual report shows 189 people are on staff - a full-time equivalent of 141.7 - an increase of six on the previous year. There are 105 full-time, 58 part-time and 26 casual staff.
“The increase is attributed to staff employed to assist with the recovery from the October 2022 flood event,” the report said.
But attracting and retaining staff remains a challenge remains, according to the council’s annual report.
“Council has a car pooling program for staff travelling to the Wedderburn office,” it says.
“Senior staff are rostered to drive their cars on specific days or in some instances staff are able to access a pool car to ride share. Staff meet at a central point and return to that point at the end of the day.”
Council’s director corporate Amanda Wilson told the Loddon Herald on Monday: “Council’s carpool program assists with attraction and retention of staff. The carpool operates between Marong and Wedderburn with collection points along the way.
“The program has around 14 staff currently utilising it and has had as many as 17 at any one time.”
The annual report shows office staff numbers have increased by 13 over the past four years to 72, depot staff has fallen three to 54 in the same period while community care staff dropped 11 between 2019-2020 and 2022-2023.
Seventeen staff were recognised for service of between 10 and 50 years with a further six receiving certificates marking five years employed by council.
The report says council finished the year with a surplus of $6.95 million.
“This surplus contrasts with the prior year surplus of $2 million ... the variance is due mainly to the impairment of flood damaged assets as a result of the 2022 flood event.
“The adjusted underlying surplus of council, after removing non-recurrent capital grants, cash capital contributions and nonmonetary capital contributions, is a deficit of $2 million.”