Financial performance 2017–18 SDN ended the financial year with a surplus of $148,826, which was a significant turnaround from the previous year’s deficit of $1.32m, as well as being much better than budgeted. Our total revenue increased from $51.8m in 2016–17 to $52.5m. Fees from families for our early childhood education and care centres continues to be our largest source of revenue. We have been successful in maintaining strong utilisation in our centres and increasing our revenue at a time of increased competition and oversupply. During 2017–18, revenue from our fee-for- service programs for children with a disability continued to grow as the roll out of the NDIS was completed. Our revenue was buoyed by additional funding from the NSW Government due to slower than expected transition to the NDIS, and by our appointment as a Transition Advisor for transition to the NDIS in NSW. We have sustained our level of support for families and continue to be a trusted advisor. Our largest Government funded contract is for the NSW Brighter Futures program. Expenditure on our staff remains our largest cost. We managed expenditure through careful controlling of costs, particularly staff costs in our shared services, and the cost of using agency casuals in our centres. Our expenditure reduced from $53.1m in 2016–17 to $52.3m. The SDN group maintained a strong financial position with approximately $8.3m in cash equivalents and $32.1m in net assets. Our capital works program continued to ensure our centres, offices and IT infrastructure were upgraded to meet requirements. This included a major upgrade of the playground at SDN Milperra. Expenditure on capital improvements during the year totalled $1,733,141. We received much appreciated philanthropic grants and donations. These philanthropic grants and donations come from a variety of sources throughout the year. Philanthropic grants and donations received in 2017–18 totalled $133,200, compared with $191,596 in the previous year. Many of our children’s education and care centres benefit from the additional equipment purchased for centres from fundraising activities of families. Net fundraising by families was $18,576. Our profit and loss statement and the statement of our financial position are on pages 46– 47 of this review. You can find our full financial statements in our 2017–18 Annual Report, which is available on our website at www.sdn.org.au. 24