May Council Meeting News Report
Published on 22 May 2025
Bathurst Regional Council held an Ordinary Council Meeting on 21 May 2025. Below is a media release collation from the meeting’s business papers.
8.1 RURAL CEMETERY OPERATIONS - MEETING WITH VILLAGE GROUPS
As of 1 October 2024, when changes to the Cemetery and Crematoria Act came into force, Council is now considered the cemetery operator for the open rural cemeteries in the Bathurst Region.
Following extensive reporting and community consultation, Council discussed the Future Management of Rural Cemeteries at the Ordinary Meeting held 16 April 2025, where Council resolved to:
a) endorse the recommendations and proposed actions contained within the Director Engineering Services’ report concerning the future management of rural cemeteries within the Bathurst Region that are under Council’s control, and
b) refer the various costs that will be required to be able to manage its rural cemeteries to the draft 2025 / 26 Operational Plan for Council’s consideration, and
c) delegate to the Mayor and/or the General Manager the authority to determine any requests to allow burials within rural cemeteries.
d) Invite CCNSW to meet with Councillors
Following these resolutions, the Financial Sustainability Committee recommended at the 21 May 2025 Ordinary Meeting that Council coordinate a meeting of Village Groups to discuss the future operations of the Region’s rural cemeteries. This has been approved by Council.
Invitations will be sent to the various Village Associations to send representatives to the proposed upcoming meeting.
9.1.1 FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY AND GOVERNANCE ACCOUNTABILITY
Councillors are aware of the recent use of restricted financial reserves earlier this year. Actions continue to be taken to address this negative cash position. These were most recently covered in the Pathway to Sustainability report at the Extraordinary Meeting held 2 April 2025. Actions include the deferral or pausing of projects/works as well as cutbacks. This is consistent with the approach to service provision over recent years since Council determined not to pursue an SRV.
This Financial Sustainability and Governance Accountability report, as presented to Council on 21 May 2025, provides background and additional detail to what has already been issued on the matter.
As at 30 June 2024, Council’s total Cash and Investments amounted to $73.783 million. Of this total, $70.873 million was classified as externally restricted and therefore unavailable for General Fund activities. As a result, $2.91 million remained as Unrestricted Cash, available to meet Council’s day-to-day operational needs under the General Fund.
In September 2024, the Auditor General completed the Council’s annual audit and found that, during the 2023– 2024 financial year, Council had recorded instances of negative unrestricted cash. This was the first time such a situation had occurred at Council. In response to the findings, Council developed and implemented a financial model to forecast the monthly unrestricted cash position for the 2024–2025 financial year. Initial outputs from the model indicated a positive unrestricted cash balance each month through to 30 June 2025.
The unrestricted cash balance remained positive until January 2025, however turned negative in February 2025, primarily due to the ongoing lack of land sales. The continued underperformance of this revenue stream highlighted financial pressures facing the Council, as has been reported.
This event exposed a modelling error. The financial model had assumed that all income (excluding rates and annual charges) and expenses would be evenly distributed across each month of the year. This was not the case. One oversight was in the treatment of grant-funded capital works, where expenditure for some grants is incurred before grant income can be claimed and received. This creates a timing mismatch between income and expenditure, often resulting in a lag of several months.
The February 2025 shortfall underscored the need for a more dynamic forecasting approach. Council has since committed to reviewing the underlying assumptions within the financial model on a more frequent basis. This includes:
• Aligning income forecasts with the actual timing of grant receivables,
• Adjusting expenditure schedules based on project delivery timelines,
• Improving monitoring of key revenue streams.
Ongoing refinement of the model and increased oversight will support improved financial management practices, ensure early identification of potential cash flow risks, and help maintain a stable and transparent financial position going forward.
9.3.10 REQUEST FOR FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE - HOMELESSNESS SLEEP OUT 2025
Council has agreed to waive the $2,057 venue hire fees at the Bathurst Sportsground for the Wattle Tree – Homelessness Sleep Out on 8 & 9 August 2025. The waiver is being funded through Council’s Section 356 General Donations allocation.
Wattle Tree House, a service operated by the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, is undertaking this event as part of their community awareness program “to promote awareness about the reality of homelessness within our community”.
Council supported this event last year (2024) by waiving the Carrington Park venue hire charges associated with the event.
9.3.11 REQUEST FOR FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE - COUNTRY WOMENS ASSOCIATION
Council has agreed to waive the Country Women’s Association’s (CWA) $95 fee incurred for the food & safety inspection at the Bathurst Heritage Trades Trail last month. This waiver is being funded through Council’s Section 356 General Donations allocation.
The CWA is a volunteer organisation raising money for local projects and is seeking the waiving of this fee so that the funds can be used for more worthwhile activities.
9.4.1 WATER SUPPLY UPDATE
Updates on water storage levels for both Chifley and Winburndale Dams are provided to Council quarterly.
As at 6 May 2025, Bathurst’s Chifley Dam was at 96.3% capacity, with 28,987ML in storage. Chifley Dam has been close to capacity, or overflowing, for over 53 months until mid-March 2025.
At the same date, Winburndale Dam’s capacity was at 84.2%, with 1,431ML in storage.
In Bathurst, the estimated residential water usage varies from week to week but currently remains below the target for Level 5 water restrictions. Over the last 4 weeks, the average estimated water usage for Bathurst is 11.5ML/d, or 150L/per person per day.
As recommended by the State Library of NSW, Bathurst Library ran a biennial customer satisfaction survey to allow community feedback on the library facility, services and programs. This valuable feedback gives the library team information on how they can improve services to the community. The 2025 survey ran from 28 February to 24 March 2025, and a total of 190 responses were received.
From these results, an enthusiastic 95% of respondents rated the library facilities and services as being Very Good or Good. The library facilities, services, collections, and programs all received a high satisfaction score ranging from 86% (opening hours) to 99% (customer service), and 94.7% of respondents rated the material they borrowed as Good or Very Good.
The results from the survey conducted are very pleasing and support the Bathurst Library Strategic direction as contained in the Strategic Plan 2019-2024. Insights and comments will contribute to devising the next Library Strategic Plan and will inform the Library team’s work plans.
Media contact: Genevieve Green Media and Communications Officer