Oh, to be able to have $1.82m left!

Reduced expenditure and higher-than-budgeted income has seen the South Taranaki District Council finish the 2013/14 financial year with a $1.82 million operational surplus, according to figures released in its Annual Report.

Council chief executive Craig Stevenson is pleased with the financial performance.

"The surplus was achieved through lower-than-budgeted expenditure - $673,000 - and higher-than-budgeted income - $1,149,000 - which gave us an operating surplus of $1.82 million dollars before various accounting adjustments," he told the council meeting on October 13.

Craig says the council's Long Term Investment Fund (LTIF) also continued to perform strongly.

"The LTIF returned $14.3 million for the year which was about $5.2 million or 56 per cent ahead of budget. This is the third year in a row the fund has significantly exceeded budget expectations," he says.

Craig says at year end the LTIF balance totalled $120.8 million. All revenue over and above the annual drawdown of $5.6 million is returned to the fund to build it up for those years when it doesn't perform so well.

Each year the council's $5.6 million drawdown provides $3.87 million to subsidise general rates and a further $1.73 million to service interest and loan repayments for specific community projects.

The LITF has returned more than $78 million to the South Taranaki Community since the fund was started in 1997.