That’s the financial outlook for Gloucester Shire Council for 2008/09.

In reviewing the draft budget and management plan for the coming financial year at a special meeting of council last week, Gloucester Shire councillors were presented with the council’s financial outlook, and the budget estimate is for a minor cash surplus of $11,600 or essentially a balanced budget.

General manager Norm McLeod said the council needed to be “very astute on a long term basis” but he added that the council was in a better financial position than many others around the state.

“We’re still doing okay,” he said.

Among the big decisions made in considering the budget, council has moved away from the commitment made in May 2005 to earmark $300,000 for the relocation of the Visitors Information Centre. Three years ago council had made the decision to allocate $600,000 towards the relocation of the tourist office to the old scout hall site. This was to be funded from $300,000 in cash reserves and matching loan funds.

Council will now put those funds toward future residential land development.

The other decision reached by council, after lengthy debate, was to defer spending on extending bitumen seal in the shire for a six month period.

The motion was moved by Cr Barry Ryan who argued that funds allocated for extending rural seal in the shire for the coming year should be used instead to fix gravel roads across the shire damaged by the recent heavy rains.

An amount of $252,000 has been identified for bitumen seal works in 2008/09.

“I don’t think we have the luxury of another one kilometre of tar seal…this year…but (we should) direct it to roads in dire need of repair,” he said.

Cr Ryan argued that the $252,000 could be better spent resheeting roads across the shire.

Council’s director of technical services Gil Gendron said it looked like council would have to foot the entire bill for repairing roads damaged in the recent heavy rains as the area had not been declared a natural disaster, a declaration necessary for food repair grants.

He said a number of roads in the shire were in poor condition due to flood damage but he said the last 10 years of extending the shire’s bitumen seal by 100 kilometres had helped minimise the flood damage.

“Its an extra 100 kilometres of road we haven’t had to repair with bad weather,” he said.

Cr Ian Shaw said he agreed that council’s focus in the coming 12 months needed to be on re-sheeting and re-gravelling the shire’s gravel roads.

“Much to my disappointment I’d support what Cr Ryan is calling for,” he said.

Mr Gendron said council needed to continue to be pro-active in improving the standard of the shire’s roads and not go into maintenance mode.

“We should not just be maintaining what we’ve got but need to be pro-active and protect roads by bitumen sealing,” he said.

Cr Ryan said this year was an exception and that he didn’t want to see the bitumen extension program shelved permanently, just put on hold for 12 months.

Crs Jerry Germon and John Rosenbaum both said they did not want to see any money taken away from the rural roads budget.

Following the debate councillors voted that Council defer any expenditure on bitumen seal extensions for six months in 2008/09.

Council’s draft management plan and budget for 1008/09 is on public exhibition for 28 days from today, May 14 through until June 11 and written submissions from the public on the document can be submitted until June 11.

Council will then consider the draft plan at its June 18 council meeting for formal adoption.