Financial Performance Report March 2026

Thank you Mayor and Through the Chair I'll take the report as read in front of you. The March report provides nine months or 75% of the financial year of actual data. There are no material that identified financial to Council forecasts to our financial position as identified financial risks at the 30th of June in 2026. As noted in the report, Council has recorded a favourable operating position of 3.5 compared to 3.2 in February 2026 with a net result variance to date of 9.7 million dollars. This is primarily driven by 5 million dollars derived from our capital funding sources. Operating revenue and operating expenditure continue to track within a narrow positive variance to budget when viewed as a percentage rather than as a dollar figure and this is consistent with the commentary and trends you would have heard from me in the February 2026 report. I would like I to draw some express attention to elements of the report. So on the top of page two, there's a table that looks at the waste management, side of the business. Revenue performance reflects a $1.2 million variance positive variance to budget. This is primarily driven by a small increase of sales of goods and materials and services affected by general waste fees relating to gate fees and sale of recyclables. There is also about a $1.1 million expenditure primarily driven by materials and services underspent. There is a piece of work ongoing in the background with officers to understand what this underspent relates to. This point in time we don't believe it presents any risk but will provide further updates in subsequent meetings. In February 2026 I provided commentary that officers were undertaking a detailed review of the holiday parks variance to budget. So the notable update is officers offices in the background have looked at the debtors ledger related to holiday parks and both revenue and expense slide items. So both revenue and expenditure is overstated compared to the budget. They effectively are in a net-off position of revenue that is in offset by managerial costs. That is then by management fees. So this is a result of the worker looking at the debtors ledger. So to summarise, there's no impact to the underlying operating financial position. It's effectively just accounting treatment behind the scenes to revenue has been recognised and associated expenses tied to debt. Very much. To reiterate, green shading has been provided to elements of the report to convey good as green. Elements that aren't, I wouldn't say necessarily bad, but positive in nature. I would like to draw attention to our grants, subsidies, contributions and donations line item. There is a change of 1.1 million. Dollars of grant funding which has been received from the disaster recovery program, which illustrates a positive variance to the grants subsidies. Table. A subject of discussion that comes up frequently in monthly finance reports is our employee benefits. So in February 2026 we had a report. Excuse me, Zach, I've just been reminded there's a formal meeting. Would you mind standing if that's alright? Oh, yeah. Thank you, Chair. My apologies for not standing in the first instance. I that defines normally a bottle of wine. In our February 2026 report we had an underspend of $905 and in March,000 in 2026 report we have $430,000 so this is a area that takes questions. The indication is that our actual spend is closely aligned to our underlying cost base which would imply operational efficiencies and less vacancies that are being held. We will provide further commentary as we move forward in that regard. Financial costs have reported unspent at $402,000 today. Further detailed review has been undertaken behind the scenes looking at the budget modelling. There is a broad general comment to this. Is as we go throughout the year we look at debt servicing capability that we project through our original budget. Today we've drawn down less debt than was intended ultimately tied to our capital works program. At this point in time we don't believe it reflects any perceived risk to Council but I will provide further updates. Subsequent monthly reports as a result of that. Tables are included to both capital revenue and capital expenditure. To summarise them as at the 30th of March 2026 capital revenue of 24 million dollars have has been received. 2.2 million of that is from developers and the balance is from capital grants and subsidies. Actual capital expenditure to date excluding commitments was 28.5 million dollars. 35% of councils revised council's revised capital works program. It is worth noting in the report two comparative graphs have been included from the Capital Works Executive committee which has been an ongoing dialogue from Councillors in terms of integration of the two reports. It is worth noting that the graphs include our RAs at February 2026 due to the current timings of the general and ordinary committee meetings and the Capital Works Executive. The Capital Works Executive information isn't prepared when the reports close. We're currently looking at the agenda moving forward with the changes to the works program to see if we can align this to have the current month's reporting and the monthly finance report. Cash management and investment performance as at February 2026 we had 159 million dollars of cash, of which 6.7 million dollars is held in trust. We have higher than anticipated cash balances which will be previous messaging which is ultimately linked to the re-profiling of our capital works program with council's investments continuing to perform well against industry benchmarks and self-prescribed benchmarks within our own policies. Our rates are raised reporting on page 8 conveys our rates of rebalances as at the 31st of March 2026. The movement in arrears from February to March was from 12.8% arrears to 9.7% with $3.6 million of rates payments received during the period. The March 2026 report provides the more detailed quarterly analysis that we provide through monthly finance reporting and a quarterly agenda which shows both the age of the respective rate arrears and the categorisation by category to provide a much more detailed picture our rates and arrears are. The detailed analysis refers to our rates and charges debt management policy so there's thresholds in the policy where effectively minor amounts are discontinued because they can screw the data as you would have heard me say in February 2026, 2026 we're currently in the process of escalating this through our new policy framework we're anticipating that letters will go out in due course and I hope they will provide a much more substantial update as to the progress of their escalation in the April report and to summarise the report today Council remains in a sound financial position with variances largely driven by timing or approved budget adjustments rather than financial risk and performance will continue to be monitored as we enter the end of the financial year and audit process-end processes thank you