City back in black, but challenges remain

THE City of Greater Geelong have warned that difficult financial times remain ahead despite it announcing a surprising surplus for the past financial year.

Councillors ratified the city’s audited 2022/23 financial statements last week, which showed an operating surplus of $4.686 million.

The figure is a substantial turnaround from forecasts in early 2023 that predicted an $8 million deficit.

The reversal was largely due to early receipt of Federal Assistance Grants that had been budgeted for the current (2023/24) financial year, which will likely impact this year’s results.

“Savings measures” implemented in recent months also contributed to the better-than-expected outcome.

Mayor Trent Sullivan said the result was not an indicator that the city’s financial challenges were behind it.

“It does come with potential impacts on this financial year’s result,” he said.

“We’ll note that whilst we have a surplus, it is slight compared to our overall budget… that means we must be financially prudent going forwards.”

Cr Anthony Aitken called the bottom line an “accounting surplus” that didn’t accurately reflect its position.

“The reality is that our underlying operations are actually running at a deficit,” he said.

“The $4.6 million surplus actually came from very hard and tough decisions that the council group made in consultation with the former acting CEO [Kaarina Phyland], and that actually delivered $6.2 million worth of savings.

“We did essentially receive additional financial income grant income from the federal government as well. When you add those together, that’s about $8 million.

“So if those activities had not occurred in the last five months of this financial year, we’d actually would be announcing a deficit tonight.”

Cr Aitken said he looked forward to continuing work to address the city’s bottom line with newly arrived CEO Ali Wastie.

During 2022/23, the city delivered $174 million worth of capital works, including $122 million in new assets and just over $50 million in renewals.

The city is also now responsible for $4.7 billion worth of property, infrastructure, plant and equipment.