By CASEY NEILL
GREATER Dandenong CEO John Bennie has been given the green light to stay on when his contract ends in October.
Councillor Maria Sampey last week moved to rescind plans to proceed with reappointing Mr Bennie, passed eight votes to three at the 9 June meeting.
Her motion was lost seven votes to three.
“I knew it was going to be lost,” Cr Sampey said.
She said councillors knew Mr Bennie wanted to stay on only two weeks prior to voting on his future.
They needed more time and facts to make an informed decision, she said – including Mr Bennie’s current pay packet.
“We’re just asking the question, what is he earning at present,” she said.
“The other councillors don’t care. They just want to reappoint him.”
The council’s 2015-’16 budget included $537,000 across two full-time positions in the chief executive’s department.
“Next year is rate capping. Our council is socially disadvantaged. We have a majority of people who are unemployed,” Cr Sampey said.
She said six of the 11 councillors didn’t participate in an independent review of Mr Bennie’s performance completed earlier this year.
“It was done on the computer. We couldn’t access it,” she said.
“He’s got the results of only five councillors.
“How accurate is it?”
Crs Peter Brown and Matthew Kirwan supported Cr Sampey’s calls to take more time to assess Mr Bennie’s intentions, advertise the CEO position and “test the market”.
But Mayor Sean O’Reilly said advertising the position would demonstrate a lack of confidence in the CEO.
“Past history across the local government sector said the generally current CEO does not apply,” he said.
“We would be in severe danger of losing our current CEO.”
Cr O’Reilly described Mr Bennie as “competent, diligent, forward reaching and forward thinking”.
