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NRC Posts Surplus, Signs Off Annual Report
The Northland Regional Council has posted an $182,000
net surplus for the 2008/09 financial year.
The
surplus is detailed in the Council’s newly-finalised
2008/09 Annual Report, which was officially signed off by
Regional Councillors at their monthly meeting in Whangarei
today (subs: Weds 21 October).
The net surplus is
about $3 million less than forecast, however, this is
largely due to a variety of ‘extraordinary’ factors.
When these are taken out, the Council is effectively left
with an operating surplus of $2.4 million.
Regional
Council Chairman Mark Farnsworth says that’s a good result
in a year dominated by the global recession and which has
impacted on virtually all local authorities’ investments.
(Currently, 43 percent of the NRC’s income stems from
investments and grants and 57 percent from rates and
charges.)
Mr Farnsworth says the fair value of the
NRC’s investment property and property held for sale had
fallen about $2 million over the 12 months covered by the
Annual Report, although the value of its financial and
forestry investments had increased by $545,000 over the same
period.
The Council had also received a net $1.81
million special dividend from the Northland Port Corporation
and had also made almost $1.33 million from selling shares
during a port corporation share buy back.
Mr
Farnsworth says an earlier-than-expected start to
construction of the Northland Events Centre was another
extraordinary factor on the Council’s books.
“When
Council was compiling its budget early last year we had not
expected construction of the Centre to begin during the 12
months the Annual Report covered, even though we already had
money set aside for it. But as construction actually
started in February this year (mid-way through the financial
year) the cost of that work has had to be accounted for
accordingly on our books.”
Mr Farnsworth says the
early start has had no effect to the NRC’s overall
contribution to the proposed Events Centre which will remain
unchanged and limited to $13m.
He says a start to
the Events Centre is one of a number of Regional Council
highlights for the 2008/09 year detailed in a 16-page
summary of the Annual Report, now available on the
Council’s website at http:http:www.nrc.govt.nz/annualreport
Others
included ongoing work to develop flood risk reduction plans
for 27 Northland rivers, praise from the Environment
Minister for Council’s almost perfect resource consents
processing record and the launch of the Council-funded and
administered CityLink bus service.
The Council’s
website http://http://www.nrc.govt.nz won national and international
recognition and was judged second of New Zealand’s 85
Council sites. (It won first place the previous
year).
During the 2008/09 year Council staff also did
much of the groundwork on a project now allowing
Northlanders access to hundreds of thousand of dollars worth
of aerial photography and other geographic information
system (GIS) data. The changes – believed to be the first
for any Regional Council in New Zealand – give public
access to roughly 90% of the data on the NRC’s
databases.
More than 150 projects from protecting sand
dunes to pest control were also awarded a share of the
Council’s $500,000-plus Environment Fund.
Mr Farnsworth says the roughly 150-page Annual Report proper will be printed over the next few days and will be posted on the Council’s website next week. Hard copies of both the Summary and Annual Report proper will also be available from Regional Council offices later next week.
Meanwhile,
Mr Farnsworth says although the Annual Report measures the
year that has been, people keen to address any issues raised
in it will have the opportunity to do so through the
Council’s upcoming Annual Plan
process.
ENDS
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