City of Adelaide’s outstanding financial turnaround

Strong leadership and sensible financial management have seen the total operating deficit for the City of Adelaide significantly reduced from $36.4m to $6.9 million for the end of this financial year.

Council is also projecting a large reduction in debt with its total borrowings shrinking from $90.3 million to $34.7 million.

Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor said Council is committed to continuing to strengthen its financial position and achieve a break-even budget in the current financial year, while ensuring it delivers on its strategic plan and vision to be the most liveable city in the world.

“We have been taking a measured and responsible approach to our finances and the huge reduction in our operating deficit clearly demonstrates that we’re on the right path,” the Lord Mayor said.

“As a Council we’re working closely with our CEO Clare Mockler and her team to ensure we return to an operational performance that is equal to or even better than pre-pandemic conditions.

“This improved performance doesn’t happen without a lot of hard work and dedication from Councillors and our administration, who all have our ratepayers’ and city users’ best interests at heart.”

City of Adelaide CEO Clare Mockler said despite the impacts of the pandemic, there has been significant improvement in the operating result for the City of Adelaide over the last three years.

“Strong leadership and sensible financial management have seen us steadily improve our financial position since the impacts of COVID-19 began to hit the city and North Adelaide,” said Ms Mockler.

“These substantial improvements come from taking a good hard look at our business, identifying cost savings and new revenue streams, working more efficiently and innovative policy reform.”

“This is an outstanding result given that the City of Adelaide has provided over $12.34 million in COVID-19 recovery assistance packages, grants, incentives and promotions to support businesses and attract more visitors to the city.”

“Our commercial operations and existing income streams are also performing steadily – and we’re optimistic about this continuing to be the case.”

As each quarter of the 2020-21 Financial Year progressed, there has been favourable movements to the City of Adelaide’s income. All major revenue streams produced a positive result against the adopted budget, with the result being $11.1 million favourable.

Council’s strategic approach to its finances for 2020-21 will enable it to work towards future operational surpluses and sustainable debt levels, in line with its Long Term Financial Plan.