Council’s 2023-2024 Draft Financial Sustainability Strategy and revised Long-Term Financial Plan (LTFP) were accepted at Council’s ordinary November meeting – signalling Council’s confidence in moving from financial ‘recovery’ to ‘sustainability’.

The new Financial Sustainability Strategy (Strategy) identifies high-level actions that Council must take to sustain a positive operating result position, and to maintain an adequate level of unrestricted cash to support operating activities and the required investment in assets.

Council CEO David Farmer said Council is moving into an exciting, yet challenging, period as it works to build on the last three years’ successful implementation of restoring Council’s financial position to enable Council to operate, repay emergency loans and meet other financial obligations.

“As we have said before, Council is now out of crisis, and so we have some clear air to start implementing the Strategy that isn’t just monitoring, but rather being proactive.”

The objectives of the Strategy are to:

• Set the parameters within which Council agrees to operate to provide financial sustainability, affordability, delivery and value for money, over the short, medium and longer term
• Ensure Council generates enough revenue, and controls services and infrastructure costs, to produce sufficient cash from operations
• Ensure Council maintains sufficient cash (or access to cash) to meet the needs of operations, investments and financing
• Ensure Council can renew or replace assets to maintain the desired level of service and provide new assets to meet demand for growth in services
• Assist Council to use ratepayers’ money, together with other funding available, to provide core and other prioritised services
• Provide direction and context for decision making in the allocation, management and use of Council’s finite financial resources
• Guide the elected Council and staff in the management of its LTFP and determine financial boundaries for delivery of operational and capital plans.

“Our previous strategy looked at the key metrics to manage day to day, but we are now looking 10 years into the future identifying the challenges and then identifying actions to ensure that 2020’s financial crisis cannot happen again.

“Community consultation will continue to be an important factor in planning capital works and community needs, and Council will continue to seek funding from external sources, including both state and federal governments.

“However, like most other councils our challenge to attain and maintain a sustainable operating position will be to look at ways to balance revenue with expenditure.

“Central Coast Council has the unique situation of two of its major income streams currently having expiry deadlines and under the current regime will require applications to IPART to be maintained. A failure to maintain this current level of income will see Council in serious financial problems again. We have seen what the impact of this is on the Council and the community, so we want to ensure that this does not happen again. 

“The preferred Scenario 3 sees Council taking action to maintain income at its current levels and keeping its expenditure on track via ongoing savings. 

“While we see small deficits in the final years of the model, they are within tolerable margins of error and positive unrestricted funds are maintained throughout the life of the model.” Mr Farmer said.

As reported at Council’s October ordinary Council meeting, Council met key government benchmarks for operating results and cash levels, and Council’s audited financial statements were delivered on-time this year for the first time since the merger, an indication of Council’s growing competence.

Council Administrator Rik Hart said he congratulates the Council team in putting together the Strategy, and the community and stakeholder partners should be confident in the adopted 2023-2024 Strategy.

“We manage assets valued at over $9.4 billion on behalf of the Central Coast community, so the responsibility of being financially sustainable is enormous. It is also my responsibility to ensure I hand over a financially sustainable organisation to the incoming new Council in September 2024.”