Central Coast Council’s financial performance is continuing to improve, with the financial report presented at the January 24 meeting showing a strong financial position to kick off 2023 and reinforcing Council’s ongoing long term financial sustainability strategy.
Council CEO David Farmer said the organisation’s financial performance continues to exceed planned forecasts.
“As reported at Council’s December 2022 meeting, and reinforced at last night’s meeting, 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,” Farmer said.
Due to the early scheduled timing of the December 2022 Council Meeting, the Financial Report presented at the January 24 meeting was the November 2022 monthly financial report.
The December 2022 monthly financial report will be presented together with the January 2023 financial report in February.
Farmer said for the month of November 2022, Council reported an operating result surplus of $17.5M, before capital income, which was favourable to budget by $5.5M and a net operating surplus including capital income of $23M which was favourable to budget by $8.4M.
Year-to-date, Council reported an operating result surplus of $28.4M, before capital income, which was favourable to budget by $13.8M and a net operating surplus including capital income of $51.1M which was $13.1M favourable to budget.
“As reported in December, the improved financial position means $50M has been allocated to early repayment of the emergency loans which were taken out in late 2020,” farmer said.
“This will be used to pay down a portion of the emergency loans when they reset in December 2023.
“The second emergency loan taken out in December 2020 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 and to provide liquidity while Council’s financial recovery plan was implemented.
“These external loans, the first $50M and the second $100M, are required to be repaid within 10 years from forecast surpluses as outlined in Council’s Long Term Financial Plan.”
Farmer said $5M has been allocated to a Future Projects Reserve building a fund to apply to initiatives for the future.
“We will continue to review our financial position and consider additional transfers to the internal restrictions on a quarterly basis,” he said.
“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.
Farmer said while Council is planning to pay down emergency loans early, the improved financial performance of the water fund also means that Council can now consider taking out additional specific loans for improvements that benefit the community, such as the Mardi Treatment Plant upgrade.
“We are very comfortable to take a loan to upgrade a major infrastructure asset such as Mardi Water Treatment Plant, which is crucial to the Central Coast community,” he said.
“This upgrade will allow the filtration of blue green algae which has been a common problem over recent years and will also provide for an increase in volume to service our growing community.
“This project was a key part of Council’s water submission to IPART – and the funding is built into the current water pricing.
“Improvements to Mardi Dam are improvements to the quality of life for our community through long term water security and secure water quality and also provides cost effective outcomes for the community by deferring investments in additional drought infrastructure.
“The accelerated reduction in General Fund emergency loans, while retaining the flexibility to borrow for major assets which are supported by long term income streams in areas such as water, sewer and waste, are key parts of Council’s financial strategy which was adopted last year.”
Administrator Rik Hart said Council’s strong financial performance was another sign the organisation is well and truly moving ahead in a positive way.
“Our focus now will continue to be addressing those areas of concern where we are not meeting our community expectations on service delivery, as well as now looking at other pro-active measures to improve infrastructure assets,” he said.
To stay up to date with information about Council finances go to centralcoast.nsw.gov.au and search ‘Financial Monthly Reports’.
Source:
Media release, Jan 25
Central Coast Council
Council Failures in Financial Reporting Continue
$17.5m operating surplus for November 2022 states Council’s Jan 25 media release. But no reasons provided for the result. What service expenditures were deferred (and likely be incurred in future months); what revenue streams exceeded budget; and what are the reasons behind the variances?
Behaviours have not changed from Councillors to Administrator. Truth and disclosure is what ratepayers should be (deserve!) provided by Council, not meaningless, unsubstantiated media grabs.
Our extremely well paid Administrator and Executives need to lift their game and stop treating ratepayers with such disdain.