Central Coast Council has achieved a significant financial turnaround and is working towards a strong long term financially sustainable position, as evidenced in financial reporting at this week’s Council Meeting.

Council received the August 2022 financial report and also referred the draft unaudited Financial Reports for both Central Coast Council and Central Coast Council Water Supply Authority for the period from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022 to the Audit Office of New South Wales, for external audit.  

Council’s CEO David Farmer said the financial results showed the continued financial discipline and there was a sense that confidence in the organisation was returning.

“We have moved from two years of huge losses, almost $160M in total, into recording a solid surplus for the most recent financial year. The first two months of the current year shows Council continuing to track a little better than budget.”

“We have stabilised the organisation and we have begun to redirect funds from the budget surplus to invest in a number of key service areas, including road remediation, vegetation management and increased resources to improve development assessment timelines.

“We have moved from crisis to recovery. We are now looking to repay some of the crisis debt early and also listening to the community and directing some of the surplus into areas of community concern.”

“Council continues to trade favourably to budget and has met each performance target set in its newly adopted Financial Strategy for the two months to 31 August this year, except for the Water Fund’s unrestricted funds ratio. It is forecast that this ratio will remain negative for the next few months until improved financial performance moves the water fund into positive cash holdings.,” Mr Farmer said.

Administrator Rik Hart said that Council’s financial turmoil chapter had closed.

“Financial discipline and sound financial management are now embedded in the organisation’s DNA,” Mr Hart said.

“Finance monthly reports are freely available online for the community and the Financial Strategy provides direction for decision making in the allocation, management and use of our financial resources. These are significant actions regulating the organisation’s financial discipline and are important tools to support a newly elected body,” Mr Hart said.

Highlights of the August 2022 Finance Monthly Report:

• Year to date (YTD) net result (including capital revenues) to 31 August 2022 was a surplus of $15.5M compared to the budget surplus of $9.2M.
• YTD operating surplus (excluding capital revenue and asset sale profit/loss) was $7.6M compared to the budget surplus of $1.0M.

Highlights of the 2021-22 draft Financial Reports:

• Operating surplus before capital grants and contributions of $47.3M
• Operating result including capital grants and contributions (of $61.5M); a surplus of $108.8M
• Operating result before capital grants and contributions shows significant improvement of $118.0M on the prior year (2020-21)
• The variance between the actual net operating result (excluding capital grants and contributions) of $47.3M surplus and the original budgeted net operating result (excluding capital grants and contributions) of $7.0M surplus is a $40.3M favourable variance driven by achieving actions in Council’s Financial Recovery Plan.

To stay up to date with information about Council finances and service delivery, go to:

• ‘Finance Monthly Reports’ at centralcoast.nsw.gov.au
• ‘Financial Strategy’ at centralcoast.nsw.gov.au
• ‘Delivery Program and Operational Plan 2022-23” at centralcoast.nsw.gov.au
• ‘Capital Works Program’ at centralcoast.nsw.gov.au