The city outranked councils across NSW to take the honour which was described by mayor Kevin Mack as the equivalent of football’s Brownlow Medal.

“It’s a temperature check of how you run your business, it’s a pretty arduous process,” Cr Mack told The Border Mail of the assessment for the award.

Yet despite being subject to external analysis which deemed Albury Council to be outstanding, Cr Mack is now backing an external review of senior city managers and chief executive Frank Zaknich.

His casting vote broke a 4-4 deadlock and ratepayers now face a bill of $30,000 for a management probe.

Against that background it is far from unreasonable for citizens to be asking why is such a review necessary?

Councillors supporting the step, John Stuchbery and Amanda Cohn, have argued it is important to have fresh eyes scrutinise administrators.

But that should not be viewed as a compelling reason for such action.

Ratepayers deserve to have a more substantial case put to spend $30,000 on what could be read as a navel-gazing exercise.

Certainly publicly there has been no evidence of shortcomings by the senior managers which would warrant such a review.

That is not to say councillors may be acting without good reason, it is just that they have not put on the public record a convincing justification.

Former mayor Henk van de Ven, who was elected to the council in 2004, was damning in his assessment of the study’s value. 

“This is by far the most outrageous waste of money which has ever been proposed in the time I've been on council,” he said.

It is hard not to disagree with that viewpoint in light of the unsophisticated reasoning for a review and the Bluett Award which was judged by three outsiders.

Lead judge Graeme Fleming was in little doubt that the top brass were steering Albury Council with acumen and foresight.

“They’ve put some good long-term plans in place for the city and they’ve backed them up with a good financial position,” he told The Border Mail in October at the time of the Bluett announcement.

We can only surmise something else may be at play in this review.