Central Coast Council has released its draft financial accounts for the financial year ended 30 June 2022 showing a return to an operating surplus of $46.4M (excluding capital revenue), a dramatic turnaround of $117M from the previous year.
CEO, David Farmer, submitted the preliminary accounts for adoption by Administrator, Rik Hart, at the Council meeting on July 26, noting they were still subject to end of year adjustments and end of year auditing.
The major contribution to the turnaround was an increase of $60M in operating income to $650.8M, attributed largely to just under $26M in asset sales as well as increased property rates.
Separately, the Council reported cash flows associated with asset sales of $57.3M.
Revenues from property rates and other charges totalled $366.0M in FY22, or around 56 per cent of total revenues, representing a $34.6M increase from the previous year.
There was also a $57M decrease in costs in FY22 to $628.5M.
Almost all of this decrease ($55M) came from reduced employee costs – a reduction of around one-quarter of employee costs for FY21.
Hart said the accounts represented “a great result”.
“We can now safely say the turnaround is complete (but) there’s still a lot of hard work to do within council to come (including) to deliver further productivity gains.”
Council’s unrestricted cash balance stood at approximately $120M, or $83M in net terms after excluding the negative balance in the Water Fund.
Outstanding debt was $313M debt down from the ‘crisis’ level of $565M announced in 2020, which then included a $200 million ‘unlawful’ use of restricted funds, which was required to be paid back.
Of the current $313M in debt, $135M is in “emergency loans”.
Farmer reported that capital works expenditure came in at $107M, significantly lower than budgeted due to weather-related disruptions and supply chain issues.
Farmer said it was envisaged that the underspend in capital works would be caught up within the current 4-year program.
Additional amounts were spent in FY23 on additional resources in the Development Application (DA) area to address unsatisfactory wait times as well as on additional road maintenance required in response to the heavy rains and flooding events across the local government area.
Hart also bid farewell to John Gordon from the Council’s Risk and Audit Committee in accordance with the fixed term of his appointment.
CCN
Rik, you have done wonders in the C.Coast since taking office. I watched it with Lake Macquarie council 20 years ago, and look where they are now. Keep up the good work.