Local Government Association of South Australia

Guide to Reporting Council Operating Expenditure

December 2014

The Local Government Association (LGA) wants to promote and improve community understanding of Local Government through the reporting of Councils actual and proposed operating expenditures in a standardised format.

It is proposed that every Council include in their Annual Business Plan and their Annual Report pie charts which graphically present operating expenditure information using the 14 categories of expenditure used by the Local Government Grants Commission:

Business Undertakings;
Public Order and Safety;
Health Services;
Community Support;
Community Amenities;
Library Services;
Cultural Services;
Economic Development;
Agricultural Services;
Waste Management;
Other Environment;
Recreation;
Regulatory Services; and/or
Transport.

A detailed explanation of how operating expenditures are aggregated into the 14 categories is provided in Appendix B of the Model Financial Statements.

The draft Annual Business Plan will present the budgeted operating expenditure information for the forthcoming year and the Annual Report will present actual operating expenditure for the previous financial year.

Two Microsoft Excel templates have been developed to assist Councils to present operating expenditure in a standardised format. Typical output from the templates is shown below.

Actual Expenditure template:

Proposed (budget) Expenditure template:

The publication of the two templates will provide the community with the opportunity to compare, at a high level, actual operating expenditure with budgeted operating expenditure.

Details of how to use the template are included at Attachment A.

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Attachment A

How to Populate the Operating Expenditure Templates

The operating expenditure templates are contained in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet named 'Operating Expenditure Template'. This spreadsheet is available on the LGA website at spreadsheet contains two worksheets – 'ACTUAL Template' and 'BUDGET Template'. Both templates are similarly structured and the following simple steps for each template will provide a pie chart of actual or budgeted expenditure depending on which template is used.

Insert data in the following cells in the template to generate the pie chart:

Cell / Current Content / Required Content
A1 / Council Name / Insert name of Council
A2 / Financial Year / Insert financial year in the format 20xx/20xy
B4 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Business Undertakings category in $000s
B5 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Public Order and Safety category in $000s
B6 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Health Services category in $000s
B7 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Community Support category in $000s
B8 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Community Amenities category in $000s
B9 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Library Services category in $000s
B10 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Cultural Services category in $000s
B11 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Economic Development category in $000s
B12 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Agricultural Services category in $000s
B13 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Waste Management category in $000s
B14 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Other Environment category in $000s
B15 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Recreation category in $000s
B16 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Regulatory Services category in $000s
B17 / empty / Insert total expenditure for Transport category in $000s

The template is set up to generate the total actual or budgeted expenditure in $millions to one decimal point (e.g. $5.3) based on the actual or budget expenditure for each category being entered in $000s. An amount of $114,721 would be entered as 115 – normal rounding rules apply.

The actual and budget expenditure amounts are based on the 89 purpose codes as set out in Attachment B to the Model Financial Statements. Those purpose codes are then aggregated in to the 14 functions listed in the template. The actual and budget expenditure amounts are based on the 89 purpose codes as set out in Attachment B to the Model Financial Statements. This is identical to the actual expenditure information provided to the Local Government Grants Commission and reflects the full cost of the functions after allocation of overheads. Note that for budget expenditure it is important to allocate overheads before completing the template.

The template generates a pie chart as shown in the body of this guide. The pie chart is sized to fit an A4 page in landscape format. It can be readily resized to fit a page in portrait format.

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