Central Coast Council votes to write off $1.3m in bad debts this financial year

Just how much fine dodgers, collapsed companies and other bad debts are costing ratepayers has been revealed with Central Coast Council voting to write-off an “unusually high amount”.

Central Coast Council has voted to write-off almost $1.3m in bad debts this financial year. Picture by Mark Scott

Central Coast Council has voted to write-off an “unusually high amount” of bad debt this financial year in a bid to clear its books of unrecoverable money with some fines dating back to 2006.

At its meeting on Monday night, councillors voted to write off a total of $1.3m in bad debt for the financial year of 2024 to 2025.

Under its powers, council staff have the ability to write-off individual bad debts under $5000 by “delegation” with other debts over $5000 to go before councillors for a vote.

A total of just over a million dollars ($1,054,739.81) was written off by delegation and was made up mostly of unpaid fines totalling $921,237.

“Some unpaid fines date back to 2006-07,” a report to council’s meeting states.

Unpaid fines account for the lion’s share of bad debts totalling more than $900k. (File image)

“Considering the age of these debts it is deemed appropriate to treat these amounts as unrecoverable and to write off as bad debts for council.”

Other big ticket items included a little over $10,000 in unpaid booking fees for community halls or parks, nearly $40,000 in “compliance” and a further $72,461 listed as “other” debts.

Council has voted to write-off a considerable amount in bad debts. Picture: istock

Despite the cost of living crisis the amount written off for unpaid rates in the form of rubbish, water and sewer charges was only $5,360 while unpaid rents on council properties was just $6,384, which is a ringing endorsement for council’s hardship and debt recovery policy.

Meanwhile council had 18 individual fines over $5000 each, worth a total of $117,335 which it decided to no longer pursue with some dating back to 2019 and 2020.

The remainder of its debt, totalling $112,712, came from six collapsed companies including three cafes/restaurants that had rented council premises and three construction companies that either failed to deliver services or damaged council property during operations but didn’t last long enough to ever pay for the remedial works.

“Council actively pursues amounts outstanding regarding rates and charges, and sundry debtors, in accordance with its hardship and debt recovery policy,” the council report states.

No one likes getting a fine but those who disappear without paying has cost council more than $900k. (Picture: iStock)

“Debt recovery actions include internal collection efforts, external debt recovery processes, and where applicable, legal proceedings.

“However, despite these efforts, in some instances recovery has proven unviable due to factors such as insolvency, deceased estates with no assets, or untraceable debtors. Amounts that are deemed unrecoverable and uneconomical to pursue must be written off.”

Council’s director of corporate services Marissa Racomelara told the meeting this year staff did “a big clean up” of old fines dating back to 2006.

“This is an unusually high amount for fines, since then we’ve also amended our processes and appointed a new debt recovery agent so we should see this drop off substantially in the future.”