Financial Performance Report – December 2023

Frank Wilkie68:07

You Shaun. Now next item is the Financial Performance Report. Don't go too far though Shaun. Financial Performance Report for December. Pauline Coles you have the floor again.

So operating revenues continue to outperform forecast and operating expenditures are under forecast year to date to the end of December. Operating revenue is $3.2 million above budget which has been driven by $2 million of interest and $1.4 million of sales of goods and services from holiday parks, community facilities and waste. We also have a slight above budget amount of about $300,000 in operating grant revenue. This has been offset by lower than forecast revenue in rates due to some valuation changes and category changes and Fees and Charges are about half a million dollars below budget year to date. Operating expenditure is $1.2 million underspent with the majority of this underspend relating to employee costs resulting from vacancies and recruitment timing. Materials and services expenditures marginally under budget at this point in the year. Many of these year-to-date variances that you'll see in this report have been addressed as part of the budget review too, which will be reflected in the January report. The quarterly update on tourism economic development expenditures shows that this program is on track year-to-date. Also included is the quarterly summary of legal expenditure, which shows $1.2 million spent of the four-year budget, or $1.6 million at this point in the year. Overall council's operating position at December is $4.4 million above budget. Capital revenue is above budget $5.2 million due to the further advanced funding from QRA and year to date. Excluding disaster projects, Council has expended 33% of the four-year capital program, which equates to about $17 million, with a further $6 million currently committed. A further $12.6 million has been funded year to date on QRA disaster projects, but as I mentioned, with BR2 coming into place, that will adjust those budgets back in the January reports. Council householdings at the end of March was $106 million, with $30 million invested in term deposits. Quarterly update on the breakdown of cash the quarterly update on the breakdown of cash holdings has also been included in this month's report, and you'll note the major movement in the graph compared to the previous quarter is in working capital, as we're at the end of the first rating cycle of the year, so we issued rates in July and we've spent that money through to December, which is why that's come down, once we issue rates in January. That'll kick up against once that comes back in and that'll fund through the operations to the end of the year. Restricted and unrestricted cash has also declined and that's basically due to the delivery of the capital works program and also the utilisation of QRA disaster funding that we received in advance. With half the financial year complete, council's financial performance continues to be strong.