Show a little commoncents

CASEY chief executive Mike Tyler must be a frustrated man.
His council has been under constant attack from a small section of the community for socalled wastage of money, led by one councillor and taken up by another.
I see money spent in the municipality that I would strongly oppose, but I also hear other people demand that it should be spent in those areas I see as inappropriate.
So what is wastage when you are dealing with the public purse and providing services for people?
One of these councillors has no financial training and the other very little, if any.
Clearly, there must be some wastage in an administration that deals with a turnover of about $150 million a year, but on the other hand I have seen cases where the chief executive and his senior officers have saved millions of dollars for the council and gained millions of dollars for community services.
So what are these attacks all about?
I say these councillors should come up with solid examples before casting aspersions.
The fact is that the council has received commendable audit reports from the government auditor and a statement from the Casey audit and ethics committee that its accounting figures are totally transparent.
I recall the days when the finance manager would place before each council meeting a list of all expenses for the month and one or two councillors would pour over them and pick up on individual items of expenditure by the administration.
It always came to nothing.
The problem at Casey is that two councillors claim the council is involved in considerable wastage and over expenditure and want a third and independent audit done that will waste many thousands of dollars.
Please councillors, let the council officers get on with their job.