Lithgow City Council has cleared up the confusion surrounding the expenditure of last year’s Halloween Festival.
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Concerns were raised after a Government Information Public Access (GIPA formerly Freedom of Information) request from former councillor Martin Ticehurst.
The GIPA report showed the figures released in the original Halloween Festival 2016 report presented to council on February 6 to be incorrect.
A new audit to be presented to council at Monday night’s meeting explains how the discrepancies occurred.
It showed expenditure totaling $153,721.54 and income as $41,305.89 without the addition of $90,000 from council.
However it was later identified an invoice of $1,200 had been incorrectly costed to the Halloween budget instead of Lithglo.
When this is taken into account expenditure should be adjusted to $152,521.54 resulting in a total deficit of $21,215.65.
The original report had listed expenditure at $130,787 and income at $131,282, a total profit of $495.
The discrepancies were attributed to:
- $21,749.27 of invoices being incorrectly costed to other areas of the tourism budget
- Employee costs of $7586.86 that were found to be incorrectly costed
- Plant charges of $1,859.03 that were found to be incorrectly costed
- An estimated $15,000 on operational staff and contingency being found to be incorrect
Mayor Stephen Lesslie along with councillors Wayne McAndrew and Cass Coleman will put forward a motion to rescind a previous resolution which proposed $90,000 of funding for the 2017 Lithgow Halloween Festival.
The motion also recommends funding discussions for this year’s event be considered as part of Council’s normal budgeting procedures.
