'Politically motivated': Kiama councillor objects to financial report's wording

It also suggested protests about the planned sale of the facility may have driven down the price - part of a paragraph Cr Kathy Rice said was "politically motivated".

At an extraordinary council meeting on Thursday, the Strategic Finance and Governance Improvement Plan was tabled.

The plan was a requirement of a revised performance improvement order and outlined the steps that will be taken to bring the council back into sustainability.

The plan lays the blame for the current financial straits of the council to the decision to build the Bonaira aged care facility.

"Council's current financial situation primarily arose due to council's decision to invest $58 million into a new large aged care and retirement village site," the plan stated.

"The capital costs blew out to the value of $107 million, with internal operational funds being used to fund shortfalls and inadequate public reporting to the community, to the elected body or to relevant state agencies."

Elsewhere in the plan, it made mention of opposition to the sale, which had been voted on by councillors.

"This process has been challenged by political and union campaigns," the plan said.

"These activities have had a real and material impact on the value of [the] asset and service and have caused significant reputational damage to the council.

"That situation is a sad reflection of a council that is trying to make deliberate financial choices, informed by data and that is trying to correct the situation without further state interventions or in fact loss of democratically elected representatives."

Cr Rice objected to the tone of the paragraph and felt it needed to be cut out.

"Now, I have an issue with that because the paragraph itself is politically motivated," Cr Rice said.

"It's not factually balanced and it apportions blame, it adds no value to the document."

She said there was "no evidence whatsoever that the representations to sell were a political campaign".

Instead, Cr Rice put forward an amendment that would change the paragraph to read "Following continued opposition and disruptions over a period of two years council has resolved to divest of its aged care services on the Bonaira site and is currently in negotiations with a preferred tenderer."

Mayor Neil Reilly said the words in the original paragraph sounded familiar and CEO Jane Stroud confirmed they had been sent in a submission to the federal government, which had been approved by councillors.

Because the council had already approved those words, Mayor Reilly ruled the amendment out of order.

Speaking to the original motion to approve the plan Cr Matt Brown the performance improvement order would not have been issued if "everything was working according to plan".

"A lot of important decisions have been made and and some very difficult decisions have been made, but we have done a lot of work," Cr Brown said.

"There's a lot of work to do. But as far as I'm concerned, Mr Mayor, we are heading in the right direction.