{"id":360150,"date":"2025-04-29T19:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T09:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=360150"},"modified":"2025-04-30T11:56:27","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T01:56:27","slug":"council-tick-from-auditor-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2025\/04\/29\/council-tick-from-auditor-general\/","title":{"rendered":"Council Tick From Auditor-General"},"content":{"rendered":"
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South Burnett Regional Council has again received a tick from the Queensland Auditor-General<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

April 29, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n

South Burnett Regional Council has received a tick from the Queensland Auditor-General in her latest annual report on local government finances.<\/p>\n

Auditor-General Rachel Vagg’s report, released recently, said all but six of Queensland\u2019s 77 local councils had received unqualified audit reports on their 2023-24 financial statements.<\/p>\n

The SBRC\u2019s financial statements again passed inspection without any reservations, as did the accounts of its controlled entity, the South Burnett Community Hospital Foundation Ltd.<\/p>\n

Other adjacent councils also received unqualified reports: Cherbourg, North Burnett, Western Downs, Toowoomba and Gympie.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Queensland councils were also required to report on various measures of their financial sustainability.<\/p>\n

The SBRC\u2019s statements showed it was achieving above the desired benchmarks for liquid asset holdings, asset management and debt servicing capacity.<\/p>\n

However, the council\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

This resulted mainly from the erratic payment of Financial Assistance (FA) grants which are distributed by the Queensland Grants Commission.<\/p>\n

The SBRC was also negatively affected by a reduction of $600,600 in the SBRC\u2019s annual FA grants.<\/p>\n

Alongside other councils, the SBRC has appealed to the Federal and State governments for a fairer, larger and more equitable distribution.<\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Auditor-General noted that Cherbourg Council\u2019s financial sustainability had been affected by the inability to generate sufficient revenue to cover all operating expenses, depreciation and financial costs.<\/p>\n

The audit report found that the North Burnett Regional Council had again returned a large operating deficit; 67.5 per cent of operating revenue.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

The report also found that the NBRC was under-investing in the replacement of depleted assets.<\/p>\n

In 2022-23, only half of Queensland councils had formally recognised climate change as a risk to their operations and to their communities.<\/p>\n

The Auditor-General has recommended that all councils \u201cconsider climate risk as part of their strategic and operational planning and put measures in place to mitigate this risk\u201d.<\/p>\n

The six councils whose audits were marked “incomplete” were: Palm Island, Diamantina, Mornington, Northern Peninsula Area, Woorabinda and Wujul Wujul.<\/p>\n

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