Operational Plan 2025-2026 Q2 Quarterly Reporting

Brian Stockwell65:18

I think one thing that we is just don't do enough reiterating how fortunate we are as a Council to be in such a strong financial position. To have to explain why the net liabilities ratio is a negative is not something very many councils have to do. At a low level of debt, even though we're spending 79 million dollars worth of capital works in the revised the you know I always refer back to when I first got into Council. It was well below 20 million dollars a year in capital works. So that has increased. The fact that we're in surplus, the fact that we try and is manage it so it you know, the cash reserves aren't greatly increased by having excessive great prices so we're now you know basically break even in terms of our surplus you know less than a hundred thousand dollars from memory. That's very tight for a huge budget of ours you know so the fact that we do manage it and yes we have got some good cash reserves and the one thing that I suppose another sort of message to the community if we spend all that cash reserves on capital works this year then the pressure on the operating budget next year to have raised rates because we'll have the increased depreciation. So that link between how much new stuff we build to increase and depreciation is the real balancing act in terms of local government budgets but overall this review is a worthy one. It isn't one where we've looked at new initiatives but there may be one of those reviews before the end of the financial year if we're sailing well. We should speak. Councillor Wilson, do you have the credits? No, thank you. I'll put the motion. Those in favour? That's unanimous. So next item is the operational planning plan 2526 quarter two quarterly report and we have a executive up here, Jonci Wolff, here to give us an overview. Good afternoon Councillors.

So this noting report provides a quarter two progress update on the delivery of the 2526 operational plan. Overall performance remains positive with 77 of the initiatives on track or completed. Sixteen initiatives experienced a minor disruption and five a major disruption. For the major disruptions it's the Kabi Kabi engagement commitment plan would however as you aware it's being addressed through the budget review process. Then we have the progression of stage four for the regional art gallery but the report is now scheduled for April 26 to come to Council. Then we have a scoping of a workforce planning model. It has experienced a major delay as well. However draft plan and scope are anticipated for March 26. Then we have the finalisation of the Boreen Point Campground master plan. This is a bit unclear because there is a bushfire risk. This has not been resolved yet. Some of the key achievements: Destination Management Plan, as anyone would remember. It's a great achievement for Noosa. The Tourism Noosa Roadmap as well. The associated Tourism Noosa DEET is now scheduled for delivery in March. It's requested by Tourism Noosa. We also saw the successful trial of a community engagement panel which is fantastic. Initiation of the engagement phase two for the draft Noosa Botanic Gardens Master Plan. We also saw the implementation of a sports development grant program to support local athletes and coaches competing nationally and internationally. Quite timely with all the exciting things happening at the Olympics at the moment addition to that, in attachment two, this report provides an overview of council's current key performance measures. Overall, the majority of these measures performed in line with targets, in line with previous reporting periods. You will notice, though, that there was a 10% increase in requests received, which caused a decrease in the number of requests completed within target date. This was likely caused by the storm event late in November, which saw a huge increase of requests coming in, obviously for tree removal, vegetation clearing, and so forth. As you would be aware, the Council crews are still working through the backlog of that work. That is the high level summary. Any questions, happy to take them.