Central Coast Council is on track to pay down some of its debt earlier than planned as it continues to reinforce long term financial sustainability.
Council CEO David Farmer said the organisation’s financial performance was currently exceeding planned forecasts.
“Our strong financial performance means that we can allocate surpluses to pay down some debt earlier than originally forecast and set aside funds for future needs, while we continue to prudently manage other financial challenges such as rising costs due to inflation,” he said.
Council adopted an updated Restricted Funds Policy to include two new internal restrictions, Emergency Loan Repayment and Future Projects Reserve, at its meeting on November 22.
Funds of $50M have been allocated to Emergency Loan Repayment and will be used to pay down a portion of the emergency loans in December 2023.
This is when Council will refinance the balance of the second emergency loan which will have an outstanding balance of $82.6M in December, 2023.
Council secured $150M in emergency loans in late 2020 to reimburse restricted funds unlawfully accessed.
These external loans, the first $50M and the second $100M, were a financial recovery action and are required to be repaid within 10 years from forecasted surpluses as outlined in Council’s Long Term Financial Plan.
Funds of $5M have been allocated to Future Projects Reserve to assist with planning ahead for future projects.
“These actions align with Council’s Financial Strategy that was adopted in August this year,” farmer said.
“We will continue to review our financial position and consider additional transfers to the internal restrictions on a quarterly basis.
“This is to ensure we can repay the emergency loans as soon as is practical and free up cash flow that we can direct into services that our community want.”
Administrator Rik Hart said Council’s strong financial performance was another sign the organisation had left the financial crisis well behind it.
“The organisation is financially stable,” he said.
“Our focus is on addressing those areas of concern where we are not meeting our community expectations on service delivery.
“Our community is already seeing the benefit of more investment in road remediation and vegetation management, and soon will see an improvement in development assessment timelines as staff resources have been increased in that area.”
To stay up to date with information about Council finances and service delivery, go to the following links on the Council website centralcoast.nsw.gov: Finance Monthly Reports; Financial Strategy; Delivery Program and Operational Plan 2022-23; and Capital Works Program.
Source:
Media release, Nov 23
Central Coast Council
CCN regurgitating yet another Council press release re financial turnaround.
If CCC is repaying restricted fund loans early, and total debts are lower than before these emergency loans were taken out, why does it still need an extra $25M per year in special rate variation?
The numbers never added up with ratepayers slugged an extra $253M over ten years when Administrator Rik Hart had already admitted he only needed $110M from rates to repay restricted fund loans – the rest coming from asset sales.
Now, with asset sales delivering even more than forecast, Mr Hart has admitted the extra borrowing is effectively repaid with debt lower than before the merger six years ago.
So, why does Council still need the $25M per year special rate variation?
Mr Hart has taken IPART and ratepayers for mugs.
The real purpose of Mr Hart’s rate hike was never to repay loans at all, but to plug an ongoing structural deficit from a poorly performing and inefficient Council.
Mr Hart and CEO David Farmer have failed to fix the underlying causes of Council’s past and continuing performance issues: poor management, bad culture and low productivity.
If anything, all this extra money from ratepayers removes the incentive for reform – which is why all the indicators show Council services still deteriorating despite massive rate hikes.
We’ve had taxation without representation for too long and things are just getting worse. Time for fresh leadership to fix the real underlying problems.