A ‘beautiful set of numbers’

At the end of 2014 the City of Melbourne was doing $10 million better than expected.

Outlining the second quarter financial report to the February 10 Future Melbourne Committee, CFO Phu Nguyen told councillors the organisation was tracking towards a $23.36 million surplus against a budgeted surplus of $13 million.

However, Mr Nguyen told councillors the end of year surplus was expected to be just $6.4 million.

He said the council had also just received record “open space” contributions.

“For the first six months we’ve received $9.8 million against a budget of $900,000.  That is significantly higher than historical averages and the six month figure is higher than any annual amount we have received.”

He said the council currently had $14 million in its open space reserve account.

Mr Nguyen said Crown Casino had successfully managed to save $636,000 in rates over two years after taking the council to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT). Council-owned business, Citywide had under-performed in the first six months of the year by a similar amount.

Cr Stephen Mayne described the six-month result as a “beautiful set of numbers”.