Strategic alignment – Draft Long Term Financial Plan

Financial sustainability in local government is not only just about balancing budgets; it also involves ensuring that the level of services that the community has come to expect is maintained and continues to be provided into the future. We need to ensure that we have sufficient funding to deliver these services, as well as having the capacity to respond to unknown shocks, such as natural disasters.

Council’s current operating capacity is insufficient to fund each of the items desired by the community, notably:

• The normal continuance of services into the future
• An asset management funding gap of $4.1 million per year
• Recurrent funding for Hornsby Park of up to $3.1 million per year
• Strategic initiatives totalling $67.26 million over ten years
• Sufficient capacity to achieve at least a 2 per cent Operating Performance Ratio each year to respond to unknown shocks.

If Council was to apply for and be successful in gaining approval for an SRV, not only would it strengthen our long-term financial sustainability, it would also give us the ability to maintain our assets, deliver the services the community has come to expect and deliver some of the priority projects identified by the community as most important over the next 10 years.