Staff shortages are one of biggest risks to Warrnambool City Council, Blain says

Cr Ben Blain said the vacancies were a big risk to the council and the number of unfilled positions was unsustainable. He said it was time the city "brainstormed" to come up with a solution.

A council spokesman said it was currently recruiting to fill 16 positions across a variety of roles.

While the council's budget was in a favourable position to the tune of $220,000, the cost of contractors was having an impact on the bottom line, Monday's ordinary council meeting was told.

Cr Blain said the staffing shortage was an issue he had raised a number of times over the past year.

"It still keeps coming up and it's probably one of the biggest risks to council - its staff," he said.

"Not only does it affect our service delivery but looking at the financial report, there's contractors who we're using in order to fill vacancies.

"In my view, it's not something that we can continue to sustain. That's eaten up some of our surplus.

"That was $271,000 of our budget.

"It's probably something that we really need to be brainstorming how we can actually fill these roles within council."

Despite staffing concerns, Cr Blain said the budget was in a favourable position.

"It's tracking all right. It's come back a bit but it's still tracking at $220,000 ahead compared to forecast," he said.

Cr Max Taylor said it was pleasing to see a favourable financial position due to savings in salaries because of vacant positions, favourable timing of projects and favourable variants due to the timing of loan borrowings.

The council spokesman said after experiencing a planning staff shortage across much of 2022, the city's statutory planning unit was now complete and busily working through various planning applications.

"It's a credit to our planners that so many applications are processed in a timely fashion during what has been an extremely busy couple of years," he said.

"In the 2022 Local Government Community Satisfaction Survey the community rated our planning performance above regional and state averages."

IN OTHER NEWS

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content:

Have you signed up to The Standard's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in the south-west.