City of Parramatta Council in strong financial position following amalgamation

City of Parramatta Council CEO Brett Newman has maintained that Council is in a strong financial position and raised concerns with the analysis cited in recent media reports about the ‘productivity’ of NSW councils.

“The City of Parramatta has undergone an extraordinary transformation over the last few years and Council has worked hard to continue to deliver high-quality services and infrastructure to our growing community,” Mr Newman said.

“Not only is Council in a strong financial position, we are forecasting to spend more than $600 million over the next four years on capital projects that will benefit the community.

“It’s no secret that COVID-19 has impacted all councils across NSW. However we’ve continued to offer our residents and local businesses the support they deserve, including through our $3 million COVID-19 Community Resilience and Economic Relief Package, funding grants, online cultural programming, and by fast-tracking shovel-ready projects to stimulate the local economy.

“This has been a tough year but we have maintained service levels and full-time staff while budgeting a $13.3 million operating loss due to the decline in revenue.

“We have also identified future savings and productivity improvements, and are forecasting a cumulative net surplus over the following three years in excess of $30 million.

“Council continually monitors its financial performance and our own analysis paints a very positive – and realistic – picture of how we are tracking.”

Mr Newman said the third-party analysis of Council’s financials was flawed due to its limited measure of productivity.

“The analysis only measured productivity as a ratio of operating revenue over operating costs – using theoretical values and ignoring several other factors central to local government operations. It does not accurately reflect the value Council is delivering for ratepayers,” Mr Newman said.

“Using 2016 as the base year for the calculation is flawed for many reasons, including that Council’s result for that year only included 10-and-a-half months of costs due to the timing of amalgamations. Further, all councils at the time had reduced spending while awaiting the resolution of the NSW Government’s amalgamation plans.”

Mr Newman said if 2017 were used as a benchmark instead, the suggested $113.5 million ‘productivity loss’ would have been a ‘productivity gain’ of $14.2 million.

“As reported in our annual financial statements, Council continues to exceed all but one key benchmark – that being due to Council’s decision to not pursue debtors during the COVID-19 crisis,” Mr Newman said.

“City of Parramatta Council is one of the largest local governments in Australia and we will continue to do what we do best: serve our community.”