Every councillor at the NSW Central Coast Council has been sacked in the wake of a report into its financial mismanagement.

Local Government Minister Wendy Tuckerman has tabled a report on the council and terminated all the councillors, effective immediately.

All thirteen Central Coast councillors had been suspended since last October, after the council reported its deficit had blown out from $41 million to $89 million over just seven months.

The NSW Government has since had to provide around $6.2 million in emergency funding, just to ensure the councils thousands of employees and suppliers were paid.

The report by Commissioner Roslyn McCulloch published this week made eight recommendations to improve accountability, including the appointment of an administrator to serve until an election is held.

It also called for “all civic offices” to be declared vacant, effective immediately.

Ms Tuckerman said the Government accepts the Commissioner’s remaining recommendations in-principle.

“The community rightly expects that its elected council officials adhere to the highest standards and this report makes strong recommendations to help improve the council’s performance moving forward,” Ms Tuckerman said.

“The Commissioner’s report raised concerns about the financial management of Central Coast Council and makes practical recommendations to improve accountability.

“Central Coast ratepayers deserve a council operating in the best interests of its community and this report puts in place recommendations to continue the road to recovery.”

The council’s mismanagement of funds has been labelled the “greatest financial calamity” in NSW local government history.

Many blamed the amalgamation of former Gosford and Wyong councils for the budgetary issues, but Commissioner McCulloch said that while the amalgamation “added to the financial and political complexities” of the council, “it was not the cause of the financial crisis”.

However, she conceded that the “costs of the merger … far exceeded the merger grants” meaning the “council had inherited significant infrastructure backlogs” leaving it with “significant, but manageable debt levels”.

A full list of recommendations and a copy of the report is available in PDF form, here.