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Volume 4, Thursday 9th August, 2007
Above: And they’re off and racing...
For more photos from the weekend’s race meeting, see pages 9 and 10 of today’s paper.
BOARD CALLS FOR INPUT
The Roxby Downs Community Board will write to BHP Billiton and the state government asking them to support the establishment of an annual Provisional Council budget committee. There was robust discussion on the process undertaken by the council in releasing for public comment its recent Draft Annual Business Plan at the Board’s latest monthly meeting. John Warneke asked Council Administrator Bill Boehm about the timing of the Plan and the process involved because it appeared no one knew anything about it until it appeared in The Monitor. “I need to know what the process is so that next year the Community Board can have input into the budget before the draft plan goes out for public
consultation,” Mr Warneke said. “The legislation that governs the council only requires an annual Business Plan and that it be put out for public consultation, which it was,” Mr Boehm responded. BHP Billiton’s Vice President of HSEC Allison Hartman asked Mr Boehm whether the council had a 3 to 4 year Plan with established goals to be achieved along the way. The administrator said there was no such budget planning in place but the milestones were covered under the council’s strategic plan. “I know BHP Billiton and the Board in principal will support certainty and transparency of the council’s budgeting process,” Ms Hartman told the administrator.
“If we could sit down at the start of the year and set a Provisional Budget with appropriate figures attached to it, then it would definitely make our life easier,” she said. Mr Boehm responded by claiming the process he had undertaken was legal. “That may be the case, but for the transparency of the process, there are rumours out there, and if it was on the table at the outset then all of this would go away,” Mr Warneke responded. “We’re not in a position to do that,” Mr Boehm said. Ms Hartman then posed the question to Mr Boehm that if BHP Billiton and the state government agreed to it (setting up the provisional budget committee) then it could happen?
”My bosses wont allow me to do that,” Mr Boehm responded. “Your bosses are the state government,” Ms Hartman quipped. The Board decided to write to the state government, BHP Billiton and the council seeking clarification of the budget process including the council’s Business Plan with a suggestion they support the introduction of the Provisional Budget Committee for early next year. The other hot topic of the night was the changes being made to the Board’s Constitution Rules of Association. The Board decided to make a number of changes to the document, which had originally been vetoed by the council administrator, in an attempt to get its own independence of operation.
The item in question is section 6.2.10 of the Rules of Association which now reads :- ‘The Panel shall determine the process by which applications to the Board are considered and shall make decisions of appointment by majority vote and based on the designated Board member selection criteria.’ BHP Billiton’s representative Ms Hartman told the board the company supported all of the changes made to the document. Mr Boehm told the meeting that for a number of reasons he could not make comment about the alterations to the constitution at the meeting but would make a considered written response to both the board and BHP Billiton in due course.