Rodney Stevens

Clarence Valley Council’s accomplishments during the 2022-2023 financial year have been compiled into council’s annual report which was endorsed unanimously at the November meeting despite councillors only receiving the report on the same day they had to vote on endorsing it.

The report outlines council’s achievements in meeting statutory compliance requirements throughout the 2022-2023 financial year, but due to the extension granted by the Office of Local Government the report doesn’t contain audited financial reports.

When the audited financial reports are completed by the deadline of December 22, 2023, they will be included in the report on council’s website.

At the November 28 meeting, when Cr Greg Clancy expressed concern that councillors had only received the annual report that day and hadn’t had sufficient time to read it, Mayor Peter Johnstone sought advice from the Acting General Manager Jamie Fleeting who said councillors had to endorse the report at the November 28 meeting, or call for an extraordinary meeting to vote on endorsing the report before the end of November.

Cr Clancy then moved a motion to support the officer’s recommendation which was seconded by Cr Karen Toms that council:

1. Endorse the 2022/2023 Annual Report and delegate to the General Manager and/or Acting General Manager to make any minor edits eg grammatical to the document that does not change the intent or statutory details if required.
2. Endorse that the 2022/2023 Annual Report be made available to the community on Council’s website.
3. Endorse the URL link to the 2022/2023 Annual Report be sent to the Office of Local Government, in accordance with the checklist for completing the Annual Report, in order that the Minister for Local Government be advised of its availability.
4. Note the 2022/2023 Annual Report does not contain the audited financial reports due to the extension granted from the Office of the Local Government for the lodgement the Audited Financial Statements for 2022/2023 until 22 December 2023.

Speaking in support of endorsing the Annual Report, Cr Karen Toms thanked council staff for the enormous amount of work that goes into preparing the report.

“I don’t see that there are any issues, but if there are any issues, we’ll soon let you know, and I’m sure the community will soon let us know as well,” she said.

Councillors voted unanimously to support the motion.

The Annual Report can be found at https://issuu.com/clarencevalleycouncil/docs/2022_-_2023_annual_report.docx