On first appearance, council seems to have weathered its 2019-2020 financial year reasonably well, producing a small surplus for the year before grants & contributions for capital purposes of $1.5M versus a budgeted deficit of $6.9M.
Not bad considering council experienced am overall shortfall in Budgeted Income of $23.4M, while exceeding its Budgeted Expenditure by $5.8M.
However, council’s bacon was once again saved by receipt of unbudgeted & untied Operating Grants amounting to $13.1M, without which it would have finished the year with a massive $11.6M deficit. That would have taken its accumulated deficits over the past four years to $31.6M, forecast to increase by a further $8.9M next year & amounting to total net deficits of $40.5M over its full term in office.
Not a pretty sight.
On the Expenditure side, council was less lucky having once again exceeded its Budget, this time by $5.8M, made-up by overspends on Depreciation & Amortisation of $3.9M, Materials & Contracts of $3.2M, net losses from the Disposal of Assets of $726K (believed to be the Australasia Hotel), Staff Costs of $508K & Borrowing Costs of $45K, all offset by a surprise reported underspend to Budget of $2.6M in the always secretive & sensitive area of Other Expenses.
Council’s usually troublesome General Fund produced Income of $102.3M, $7.5M over its Budget of $94.8M, Expenditure of $75.2M, $6.8M over its Budget of $68.5M, to produce a net deficit of $2.5M against a Budgeted net deficit of $8.4M, largely assisted by the receipt of the unbudgeted & untied Operating Grants of $13.1M.
And if residents & ratepayers require more evidence of council’s collapsing financial health & performance, they might care to reflect on the fact that while BVSC has always been among the top performing councils in the Group 4 category of regional councils, under the current council it now finds itself amongst the worst performing in nearly every meaningful measure than its former peers.
Not a pretty sight at all.
John Richardson
Secretary/Treasurer
Bega Valley Shire Residents & Ratepayers Association
Tel: 0264945669
Email: secretary@begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au
Website: http://www.begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au