Opinion

Kiama Council has recently lost millions in grants, developer contributions and legal costs but the real issue is not just the money.

It is the absence of the basic checks and balances that would have prevented these failures in the first place.

A council that forgets to renew its developer contributions plan is not unlucky. It is unaccountable.

A council that overcharges developers by $1.5 million due to spreadsheet errors does not have a bad day. It has poor financial controls.

And when Council staff fail to sign off on grants that volunteers worked hard to secure, that is not unfortunate. It is administrative neglect.

Jamberoo Rural Fire Service volunteers secured a $30,000 grant for solar panels and a $20,000 grant for a mural and garden.

The RFS met with the Mayor to secure his support, completed all the paperwork, and all Council had to do was sign it. They did not. Both grants were lost.

This week’s recommendation to cancel the Jamberoo Cycleway project is just the latest example.

It has money behind it. It has community support. It even has the design ready. But once again, the timeline cannot be met, the stakeholders are not aligned, and the clock has run out.

A sewer main is now being installed along the same stretch of road by a developer. That work will block any cycleway construction until mid-2026.

This alone makes it impossible to meet the Transport for NSW deadline. But this crucial detail seems to have arrived too late. Why? Because the people who needed to talk to each other were not in the same room.

This is where a working group could have made the difference.

A project of this complexity, involving Council, state funding agencies, utility providers, private developers and the community cannot be managed in isolation.

It requires shared timelines, early warnings and open channels between those doing the digging, the planning and the funding.

This is not about one team making a mistake. It is about a lack of structure, a lack of communication and a lack of shared accountability.

From expired developer plans to spreadsheet errors to missed infrastructure timelines, it all adds up. This is not a funding problem. It is a systems problem.

Best-practice councils operate with live tracking of grants and funding.

They maintain up-to-date policies, escalation systems for approvals, clear delegation rules and audit trails for all decisions. They do not rely on memory. They rely on systems.

They also welcome scrutiny. Quarterly internal audits, independent audit committees and public reporting of grant outcomes are standard practice in well-governed councils.

If Kiama had these in place, many of the recent losses would likely have been avoided.

Cr Warren has now asked the right question: what steps has Council taken to fix this?

She has also proposed practical solutions, including hiring a specialist to update the expired developer contributions plan, establishing an expiry register and working with experienced developers who understand the regulations set by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal and can help Council get it right.

This is not about blame. It is about fixing the culture, the systems and the accountability gaps that have allowed these failures to occur. Now the community needs to back those who are pushing for reform.

We need to expect more than apologies and commit to watching what happens next. Kiama can do better. And with the right leadership and public pressure, it will.