Council revenue drops
Charges for infrastructure down $10m
THE Toowoomba Regional Council’s top financial mind has called a $10 million drop in revenue from infrastructure charges a “shot across the bow” for the organisation.
The huge drop in infrastructure charges in the 2017-18 financial year was the main contributor to a massive shortfall in capital revenue for the Toowoomba Regional Council.
A working group, made up of representatives from the planning and finance departments, has been convened to try to fix the problem for the upcoming year.
The drop was noted in finance and business strategy general manager Arun Pratap’s monthly financial statement to the councillors on Tuesday, which showed capital revenue was below budget by $16 million, or 26 per cent.
Mr Pratap said the main reason for the shortfall was that infrastructure charges weren’t being collected fast enough by planning and development.
“I think it’s a shot across the bow that council needs to be across – infrastructure charges (should be) collected in a timely fashion,” he said.
“We need to make sure the collection begins when they are payable.
“We’ve got a working group together and a commitment from planning group – that number was too much of as variance for my liking.”
Mr Pratap also took aim at departments in the council that didn’t inform him when project budgets were expected to blow over estimates.
It comes after two major road infrastructure projects went over their estimates by more than $5 million in the previous financial year.
While this was able to be absorbed within the previous budget, Mr Pratap said fluctuations in council budget could destabilise the business.
“That will have an impact in the coming financial year, because now we don’t need the money that was budgeted for those projects,” he said.
“It’s actually quite a big deal, which was brushed over in the budget summary.”