That is what's at the core of three separate notices of motion he has lodged to the council's March 20, 2024 ordinary meeting.

They come as the council continues to examine its finances after opting not to pursue an application for a special rate variation (SRV), which could have seen a cumulative rate increase of 68.6 per cent over two years.

Cr North never supported the SRV, believing there are other ways the council can reduce expenditure and lower its backlogs without hitting residents up for more money.

Among the three motions Cr North has put forward is for the staff structure at Bathurst council to be reviewed as part of the sustainability review.

He has asked for a "full and complete review" of the structure of the directors' roles, the departments that fall under each director, and whether or not council has the required number of roles and staff allocated to the departments that fall under each director.

As it stands, Bathurst council has a general manager and four directors who head up the following departments: Environmental, Planning and Building Services; Corporate Services and Finance; Engineering Services; and Cultural and Community Services.

Speaking to the Western Advocate, Cr North said it's possible that the review could find the council has more directors than it needs.

It could also find a more efficient way to structure staff at council, as well as identify other parties that council could outsource some tasks to.

Any restructure has the potential to save council money.

"That's what a restructure is about: ways of bang for your buck, achieving what you need to achieve," Cr North said.

"And that might mean external groups, bodies, businesses doing some of the work that we've done in the past, but without doing a review, you can't honestly say that."

He wants a comprehensive review to be carried out over the coming months, with results available when the new council is elected in September, 2024.

"David Sherley is the general manager. We've got two other staff in there who have actually been general managers at other councils in the region, and I think we've definitely got the staff to do a very comprehensive review of how we're structured moving forward," he said.

Previously, Cr North has called for $50,000 in seed funding to be allocated to Project Elevate in the 2024-25 budget.

Project Elevate is a group of business minds seeking to unlock Bathurst's tourism potential and encourage visitation, and there are discussions under way about the group potentially taking the lead in the city's tourism marketing and promotion.

Cr North's notice of motion is linked to his seed funding idea, with it calling for council to take the following actions:

Cr North said the SRV process has shown the council needs to "look outside the square" of how it has always done things.

"If we can deliver the same service, and/or better, at a lesser cost and a community organisation or business can provide it, why wouldn't you look at it?" he said.

That's why he thinks it's worth investigating a partnership with Project Elevate.

"All of us agree that there's definitely things we can work with each other on moving forward, and it's important for me to just get a commitment from everyone," he said.

"It's not something that's going to be done overnight."

Cr North's final notice of motion calls for a review of how the council maintains its roads, which includes pothole repairs, re-sealing of roads, and new seals of roads where pothole repairs and re-sealing is no longer working.

He said the council has a schedule of road repairs, but, in his opinion, there are roads being re-sealed that are still in working order.

Meanwhile, roads more in need of maintenance remain untouched.

With the road maintenance backlog in the millions of dollars, Cr North wants to see council be more flexible with its schedule of repairs.

"We've got to realise that if we seek the gold standard level with roads, the backlog is just going to get bigger and bigger," he said.

He said council staff need to assess roads when they are due for re-sealing to determine whether or not they actually need work, while also looking for roads that need repairs before they're due in council's schedule.

"Maybe we need to do more eyes on the ground to say, 'There's a problem there, there's a problem there'," Cr North said.

Like the staff structure review, Cr North would like to see the results of a road maintenance review made available to the new councillors following their election in September, 2024.