Council raids cookie jar for Cowes cultural centre

AS PUNTERS, we can’t be sure whether the Bass Coast Shire Council is in good financial shape or not.

We only have their word for it.

And even on that score, they’re not singing from the same hymn sheet.

Predictably, because he says it every year, Inverloch councillor Les Larke claims council could do more, with less if necessary.

In fact, he described the picture of council operations, as painted by the draft financial and performance statements tabled at a council meeting on Wednesday, October 4, as “another disappointing performance”.

“It’s clear the accounts comply with the accounting standards, subject to audit, but it’s another disappointing performance,” said Cr Larke, noting that the council reported an underlying deficit of more than $2 million.

“It’s been another lost opportunity to reform council’s finances from an operating perspective.”

He claimed if council was able to generate a 5% or 10% operating surplus by transforming its operations, it could realise $50 million to $100 million over 10 years for rate relief and garbage charge reductions or additional capital works on its own or in partnership with government.

Other councillors took a different tack and trumpeted the organisation’s strong financial position and such achievements as “paying down debt” and “delivering $49.1 million in capital works”.

In fact, they didn’t pay down debt, nor did they deliver $49.1 million in capital works.

According to the report, net borrowings actually increased by $4 million to $20.4 million, due to loan drawdowns associated with the new cultural centre in Cowes, although Council did repay $3.7 million in borrowings ahead of schedule during the year.

It also raided the cookie jar reducing cash and investments by $10 million, from $72 million to $60 million, to pay for capital works projects including the Berninneit centre.

And the capital works overall? While $49.1 million was listed against the capital works program, $46.9 million was actually recognised as capital expenditure with the remaining $2.2 million going to operational expenditure.

The meeting, advertised variously as starting at 1.30pm (according to the online agenda) and both 2pm and 3pm on the livestream notification, went ahead at 2.05pm and was all over in a tick over 12 minutes.

The Council’s financial performance can be summarised as follows:

• $123.8 million in revenue (budget $93.7 million).
• Variation due to $15.1 million more in unbudgeted developer contributions, additional unbudgeted capital grants of $8.1 million, extra operating grants of $3.8 million and other income of $2.3 million due to increases in interest rates
• Actual expenditure $96.4 million ($4.9 million more than budget)
• Underlying deficit of $2.3 million
• Cash and investments decreased from $72 million to $60 million compared to the previous year end. This decrease is due to a bigger capital works program and the drawdown of funding from earlier years.
• Net borrowings increased by $4 million to $20.4 million. This is due to loan drawdowns associated with the new cultural centre in Cowes.

Council is yet to reveal the full cost of ‘Berninneit’ but has promised to do so ahead of the centre’s public opening on Thursday, November 2.