The Southern District Health Board expects to have finished the last financial year with a $3.2 million deficit, some $11.7 million lower than its original budgeted shortfall.
Chief executive Brian Rousseau pointed out to the board at its meeting this week the beneficial position mostly was due to "one-offs".
If they were taken out of consideration, the board was still doing better than expected.
The board, which has annual revenue of $808.4 million had budgeted for a deficit of $14.9 million.
Among the contributors to the better-than-budgeted for result were $1.9 million of unexpected funding to upgrade linear accelerator software, mental health staffing spending $1.5 million lower than expected because of unfilled positions, spending $1.7 million less on medicines, and $2.1 million lower infrastructure costs.
Mr Rousseau said the key area of overexpenditure continued to be rest-home care which was $3.6 million over budget by the end of May.
During discussion of the financial report, the finance and funding general manager, Robert Mackway-Jones, said overall the end-of-year results were "looking pretty positive", but agreed that in future years it would be hard to match the growth in service demand and costs given the expected level of funding.
In its closed session yesterday, the board considered the most recent version of its annual plan.
Mr Rousseau said he expected, if the board approved it, it should get a quick "turn around" by the ministry because the board had included the changes the ministry had sought.
What is in the plan is not revealed until it is signed off by the Minister of Health.
