Yes, it’s council budget day 2018. Not sure what details and media releases are up at the council website but did note this extract from Agenda Item 29: Statement of Estimated Financial Position.

No Council. You do not sum the column to derive a variance of (18.70%) on total operating expenses. This is more blindingly obvious because the total operating expenses are otherwise exactly the same as the total operating revenue. Even a Chinese government statistician would be impressed by this level of management control.

We can only trust they otherwise used the correct columns and rows combined with applicable mathematical functions. What to make of a statutory council agenda statement presented with basic mathematical errors?

Anyway. The biggest take away is the rates increase of 1.7% in line with CPI. I don’t know where the current Council EBA negotiation is at but sticking with my comments from last year.

The other is that there was no land revaluation again this year. Cairns will become the only major regional council not to receive a revaluation for three years.

Update: Something to come back to.

The NSW local government cost index last year increased 2.3% IPART Rate Peg

The Queensland LGAQ Cost Index increased 1.89%

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