Geelong council has adopted a long-term financial plan, setting forth its goals and strategies for the next decade.
The 10-year plan focuses on meeting the objectives of the City’s Our Community Plan and 30-Year Community Vision, improving service delivery efficiency, maintaining operating surpluses, improving asset management and reducing debt.
Councillor Andrew Katos said the plan was an important document for the future of Geelong.
“Council has many plans, in all portfolios, but the long-term financial plan is what links everything together,” he said.
“Without these finances in order, we can’t do the things that we want to do, whether it’s the delivery of services or infrastructure.
“The good thing is, over the next 10 years the key financial indicators are all looking very sound. There are surpluses out to 2035, working capital is also in the low risk range.”
That air of optimism followed the council’s formal endorsement of the municipality’s 2025 financial performance report, which detailed an operating surplus of $8.3 million, an improvement of $6.8 million compared to the 2024-45 budget.
The City has also significantly reduced its debt, which was projected to be $164 million in June 2025 but was instead $138.6m.
“Our indebtedness ratio was 60.6 per cent 2024, by 2035 that’s down to 24 per cent, which is a huge drop,” Cr Katos said.
“That gives a lot of capacity in the future and along the journey for council to be able do things, because sometimes things pop up unexpectedly.”
The long-term plan intends to steadily reduce that debt ratio to 46.3 per cent by June 2026, eventually reaching 24 per cent by 2035.
Councillor Anthony Aitken said the long-term plan had three main themes.
“The first theme is, don’t build as much stuff,” he said.
“Theme number two is to maintain more, put more resources and money into the stuff we already have. And theme number three is, don’t borrow as much money to build the new stuff.”
Cr Katos noted that City of Greater Geelong had the third largest capital works program in the state, only behind the City of Melbourne and the City of Melton.
