The KCDC is good at ‘smoke and mirrors’ accounting and we have another example in the latest annual report for 2018-2019 which it has now posted online here.

The claim of a $3.1 million surplus occurs on page 89 of the pdf.  No doubt the council will be claiming this in a media release.

Iride asked two financial analysts to comment: their replies:

There is not a surplus — the Council actually traded at a loss of $4,923,000 — this is because they made a loss of $8,021,000 on derivatives.

And this loss is actually part of their operations.

You will see from the accounts that the Council has actually lost $10,310,000 in the last three years in derivatives. I have never understood derivatives, but know that Aldous and I spent some time with Glenn Maxwell some years ago and I was just as confused at the end as…