By REBECCA BILLS
COMMUNITY members felt silenced at last Thursday night’s Mount Evelyn Township Improvement Committee (METIC) meeting discussing the future of Morrisons.
The Station House was overflowing as community members including former mayor Tim Heenan, Member for Evelyn Christine Fyffe and former Member for Evelyn Heather McTaggart attended.
Morrisons Board of Governance member Geoff McPherson made a 15-minute statement outlining the board’s orderly transition plan as Morrisons House heads towards insolvency.
Director Social and Economic Development Ali Wastie said Morrisons was committed to holding the public meeting at the METIC Meeting.
“The announcement from Morrisons is just over a week old,” she said.
“This was an opportunity for members of the public to voice their concerns and issues.”
All meeting attendees with questions had to submit their questions to METIC, with an answer to be given at a later date.
Mount Evelyn Protection and Progress Association (MEEPA) President Franc Smith said while no-one expected immediate answers, they wanted a chance to at least ask Mr McPherson for clarification of the prepared statement.
“After Mr McPherson’s statement had been read, attempts were made to ask questions but were met with hostile remarks like ‘you are out of order’,” he said.
“The meeting was closed and the public for all intents and purposes were dismissed.
“It was an absolute denigration of anything democratic.”
Current Morrisons CEO Joe Deregon said from his perspective all things were going well in regards to the closure.
“All the things we need to do to protect students and the community are in place alongside huge support from the council and Human Services,” he said.
“If there is an unhappy contingent, they need to ask themselves what exactly they are unhappy about.
“We have every intention to go quite seamlessly to the end – the best thing the community can do is support us.”
Mr Deragon said he could understand that the community just wanted a good resolution and a smooth transition into the next stage to protect their children and support of the house.
“Do I worry about each of their concerns – not really, we just want to create a smooth transition,” he said.
“We want to have an orderly output of information to the public.”
At the annual general meeting in 2013, Morrisons reported a loss of around $500,000 – the 2013 results, subjected to audit, will also report in a loss for the year.
Mr McPherson said a multitude of significant compliance and risk management issues were identified in late 2013 that former CEO Jan Simmons was aware of.
“In order to address these long-standing critical issues it has been necessary in 2014 to engage additional staff to improve compliance with the agreements Morrisons has with its funding providers,” he said.
“This has led to an additional financial burden of some $350,000 – Morrisons is facing a $30,000 fine for non-compliance in its agreements and is currently doing all things to comply with its obligations to avoid such a fine.
“As a consequence of these failures of leadership, management, operational control, financial accountability and fiduciary responsibility, together with a further round of funding changes, the board has been unable to frame an acceptable budget for 2014.”
Mrs Fyffe said Morrisons House had the same opportunity to access the Coalition Government’s record $1.2 billion a year investment in government subsidised training as any other provider.
Mr McPherson said the Morrisons Board of Governance, Department of Education, and Early Childhood Development alongside the Shire of Yarra Ranges were together focused on building a plan to translate into securing continuity of services to the community.
“It can be confirmed that the Shire of Yarra Ranges continues to support the availability of all buildings and facilities currently used by Morrisons,” he said.
“There is a readiness from these bodies to commit resources and time ensuring that the closure of the current Morrisons operation is an orderly process that is compliant with regulations and legal requirements.”
Mr McPherson reiterated that the closure of Morrisons was not a choice from the board, rather a legal and technical obligation.
He said priority was being given to keep all Morrisons staff fully informed and supported as they fielded questions from their teams, students and community families.
A special meeting with all key funding providers took place on Friday that was co-hosted by the Director Participation Branch DEECD, Bronwen Heathfield, and Morrisons Chair, Joseph D’Souza.
“The intended outcome will be to ensure we are all on the same page in terms of information and direction while building the strategy and action plan for the next phase,” Mr McPherson said.
The Mail is still waiting on a response to how the meeting went.
