Matt Hewson
Kaarina Phyland will end her tenure as Geelong’s acting chief executive this month with a win as the City declared it was poised for a break-even 2022-23.
With the City experiencing a sustained period of budgetary difficulties, the City announced Ms Phyland and city officers had managed to claw back savings of nearly $6.2 million.
In April, forecasts suggested Geelong was facing an operating deficit of over $8 million as rising costs across the board put the 2022-23 budget into decline.
According to a statement from Ms Phylaand, the biggest impact to savings came from reductions in senior officer roles, reviews of procurement and discretionary project spending, and financial integrity measures implemented during the financial year.
An official audit process by the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office, due to be released in September, will confirm the City’s final results.
Mayor Trent Sullivan congratulated Ms Phyland on the achievement of a positive outcome given the unforeseen economic challenges that arose during her year in the role.
“Our Councillor group would like to congratulate the acting CEO for this significant achievement under difficult circumstances,” Mayor Sullivan said.
“Kaarina identified the financial challenges the organisation was facing and committed to address them, and she is delivering on that commitment.
“A CEO’s role is to manage the organisation’s finances responsibly, and as we know, this at times requires difficult decisions, especially during periods of economic instability as we’re seeing at the moment.
“A lot of work was put in to turn the budget position around by 30 June, despite costs continuing to rise through that time, and the benefit is the City being closer to long term financial sustainability, something all levels of government need to have their focus on.”
Ms Phyland, who will be succeeded by new chief executive Ali Wastie at the end of this month, thanked all City employees involved in the result.
“The Municipal Association of Victoria recommends that Councils deliver breakeven operating results on average, and in a difficult environment we’ve worked hard to do just that,” Ms Phyland said.
“We’ve reached a break-even result without any reductions in funding to those service areas the majority of our community want us to focus on.”
