From the Council meeting
Yesterday at their full Council meeting, elected members received an update from DCE Organisational Enablement, Thomas Collé, on the organisation’s financial performance for the nine months to 31 March 2023.
With the new Council’s focus on prudent financial management, and having directed staff to continue to identify cost-saving measures in order to achieve approved budgets, council’s financial position continues to stabilise.
During the meeting Mr Collé highlighted the operating pressures council is facing and the measures in place to reduce this impact.
Mr Collé says “Throughout the year, significant time and expense has been required to progress Plan Change 9 as well as our emergency housing response and consenting work. Additionally we’ve experienced significant adverse weather events, including two cyclones, which have resulted in substantial damage to our roading networks and we’ve been operating within a budget that reflected little to no inflation.
“Across the organisation staff have been working hard to offset these challenges and improve our financial position. Through a series of cost saving initiatives, since December 2022, we have reduced our forecast operating deficit from $5.6million to $0.8million as at the end of March. This is a significant improvement on our previous position and we continue to work hard to constrain expenditure with the aim of being within 1% of budget at year end.”
View the presentation slides relating to the financial report HERE and watch this section of the meeting on the livestream recording HERE.
Go to page 15 of the meeting agenda to read the full financial report.