April 29, 2025
South Burnett Regional Council has received a tick from the Queensland Auditor-General in her latest annual report on local government finances.
Auditor-General Rachel Vagg’s report, released recently, said all but six of Queensland’s 77 local councils had received unqualified audit reports on their 2023-24 financial statements.
The SBRC’s financial statements again passed inspection without any reservations, as did the accounts of its controlled entity, the South Burnett Community Hospital Foundation Ltd.
Other adjacent councils also received unqualified reports: Cherbourg, North Burnett, Western Downs, Toowoomba and Gympie.
Queensland councils were also required to report on various measures of their financial sustainability.
The SBRC’s statements showed it was achieving above the desired benchmarks for liquid asset holdings, asset management and debt servicing capacity.
However, the council’s goal of reaching a balanced operating budget by 2027-28 was thrown off-balance by an operating deficit of 11.1 per cent in 2023-24.
This resulted mainly from the erratic payment of Financial Assistance (FA) grants which are distributed by the Queensland Grants Commission.
The SBRC was also negatively affected by a reduction of $600,600 in the SBRC’s annual FA grants.
Alongside other councils, the SBRC has appealed to the Federal and State governments for a fairer, larger and more equitable distribution.
Mayor Kathy Duff told southburnett.com.au that in 2008-09 – the first year of amalgamation – the SBRC received an FA grant allocation of $7,841,223. The current allocation was $6,867,243 despite inflation over the past 17 years.
The Auditor-General noted that Cherbourg Council’s financial sustainability had been affected by the inability to generate sufficient revenue to cover all operating expenses, depreciation and financial costs.
The audit report found that the North Burnett Regional Council had again returned a large operating deficit; 67.5 per cent of operating revenue. While the council had sufficient liquidity at the end of 2023-2024 to meet its short-term operating expenditures, it was not generating sufficient revenue to cover all of its annual expenses, including depreciation and its debt-servicing obligations.
The report also found that the NBRC was under-investing in the replacement of depleted assets.
In 2022-23, only half of Queensland councils had formally recognised climate change as a risk to their operations and to their communities.
The Auditor-General has recommended that all councils “consider climate risk as part of their strategic and operational planning and put measures in place to mitigate this risk”.
The six councils whose audits were marked “incomplete” were: Palm Island, Diamantina, Mornington, Northern Peninsula Area, Woorabinda and Wujul Wujul.
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