Record local cash splash
Annual report reveals council’s $200m spend
TOOWOOMBA businesses have enjoyed a $200m cash splash from the council over the past year, with the organisation revealing a record-breaking local spend result in its latest annual report.
The new report, handed down by Mayor Paul Antonio at Tuesday’s meeting, also revealed a $15m surplus that will be spent on new projects in the coming years.
It marks a $21m turnaround for the council, after the impacts of Covid-19 resulted in a $6m deficit in 2019-20.
But Deputy Mayor Geoff McDonald pointed to the local expenditure result of 64 per cent as the most remarkable achievement, putting the total figure for 2020-21 at $204m.
It comes after council launched several initiatives and policy changes to ensure Toowoomba region suppliers secured local government tenders for jobs and services.
“We set ourselves a target of 60 per cent (local spend) and we cracked that, and that’s something the council and the community should be proud of,” Mr McDonald told the meeting.
“That’s on the back of many years of strong financial, fiscal measures.”
The organisation also met its three key financial targets, designed to ensure the council’s operating budget kept track of asset depreciation as well as its overall liabilities.
The council borrowed an extra $26m from the Queensland Treasury to cover capital projects during the past financial year, but this was significantly down from the $60m it initially said would be needed in the previous budget.
Mr McDonald said this $34m underspend on capital works was mainly due to supply chain issues across the nation, which was causing a backlog of projects.
“Those projects have been deferred in some way because of a variety of reasons, predominantly it’s because of supply chain issues across the nation,” he said.
“That affects the less borrowings, which looks better for us but now those projects are earmarked to be delivered in this financial year.”
When asked how the $15m surplus would be spent, Mr Antonio pointed to more funding for the region’s roads.
“I think road funding is something we absolutely struggle with — look at the production that’s coming out of this area,” he said.
“The trucks using our roads are not 25-tonne trucks, they’re now carrying 70 tonnes and are triple trailers.”
Mr Antonio said the constraints on councils were a “failure” of successive state and federal governments to recognise the importance of their local counterparts.