Budget and Financial Sustainability

Welcome

We strive to report clearly and transparently about where our money comes from, where our money will be spent, and our plans for ensuring long term financial sustainability by sharing with you the full picture of Council’s financial position, our challenges, our priorities and plans.

Council is guided in its organisational planning and reporting by the Integrated Planning and Reporting (IP&R) Framework, as prescribed by the Office of Local Government. For more information visit our Integrated Planning and Reporting page.

Operational Plan

Operational Plan 2025/26

We have developed the Operational Plan 2025/26(PDF, 14MB) to support the aims of our Community Strategic Plan (CSP) Woollahra 2035(PDF, 6MB) and the Delivery Program 2025/26-2028/29(PDF, 11MB)

An Operational Plan is prepared each year, and identifies the projects, programs and activities that Council will undertake in the following year, grouped into 14 key service areas. The Operational Plan also contains Council's Annual Budget, Capital Works Program, Rating Structure and the adopted Fees and Charges for the year.

Council's draft Operational Plan 2025/26 was placed on formal public exhibition from 30 April - 28 May 2025. Members of the community were invited to make public submissions expressing their views on the draft plan during the public exhibition period. After public exhibition, Council staff and Council's Strategic and Corporate Committee reviewed all feedback and submissions at a meeting held on 16 June 2025. The Operational Plan 2025/26(PDF, 14MB) was adopted by Council on 23 June 2025, commencing 1 July 2025.

Council reports on our budget, on how we are progressing on our planned projects and the measures we are taking to strengthen our long-term financial security. This enables us to track and review progress. Budget progress reports are made to Council's Committee quarterly and progress reports on our Operational Plan are made twice per year to Council's Committee. Current and previous updates on Plans and the budget are published below.

How we will spend our Budget in 2025/26

Each year Council develops a budget to provide infrastructure and services for our community. Council’s budget was adopted as part of Council’s Operational Plan(PDF, 14MB) on 23 June 2025.

In 2025/26, Council has a planned total expenditure of $159.6 million, being $131.9 million in operational expenses, (day to day costs, e.g. running our libraries), $1.5 million in SRV operating expenditure, and $27.7 million in capital projects which includes $6.9 million of SRV Capital expenditure (e.g. O'Sullivan Road, Bellevue Hill Cycleway project).

Council's 2025/26 Capital Works Program

The Operational Plan 2025/26(PDF, 14MB) provides for a Capital Works Program of $27.7 million and includes infrastructure renewals of $7.5 million in line with prior year's spending and stormwater works spending of $3.0million, an increase of $2.2 million,

Highlights of the 2025/26 Capital Works Program include:

$4m for the O'Sullivan Road, Bellevue Hill cycleway project. This is an SRV funded project

$1.48m for Rushcutters Bay catchment area works at Cecil Street. This is an SRV funded project

$578k for Climate Change Adaption Measure at Edgecliff Road, Woollahra. This is an SRV funded project.

$960k for the transition from Gas to Electricity at Kiaora Place Building 1, in particular replacing the air conditioning systems
$900k for the renewal of Thornton Park playground
$750k for Multi Purpose courts at Woollahra 2&3
$600k for road pavement resurfacing at Bulkara Road between Kulgoa Road and Trahlee Road, Bellevue Hill
$400k for IT infrastructure renewal to replace four hyperconverged servers that are at the end of their life
$390k for the construction of new toilets at Lyne Park playground

The chart below shows the breakdown of the total Capital Works program between categories:

Long Term Financial Plan

A requirement of the Local Government Act 1993(s.403) is that a council must have a long-term Resourcing Strategy for the provision of the resources required to perform its functions. The Resourcing Strategy integrates with the Council Delivery Program and Operational Plan.

The Resourcing Strategy consist of the following three components:

Long Term Financial Plan
Workforce Management Plan
Asset Management Plan.

Council needs to maintain a financially sustainable position over time so that we can provide services and renew infrastructure for the benefit of our community. The Long Term Financial Plan (LTFP) helps us develop a plan to achieve this. Council’s LTFP is a tool to aid decision making, priority setting and problem solving.

The LTFP expresses in financial terms the activities Council proposes to undertake in the short, medium and long term. Using this, we can identify if we can continue to pay for our services and maintain our infrastructure (community buildings, parks, roads and business centres) in good condition with the income that we expect to receive.

The LTFP is a 10-year rolling plan which is updated annually and captures the financial implications of asset management and workforce planning.

Long Term Financial Plan 2025/26-2034/35(PDF, 4MB)

Council's draft Long Term Financial Plan 2025/26 - 2034/35 was placed on formal public exhibition from 30 April to 28 May 2025. Members of the community were invited to make public submissions expressing their views on the draft plans during the public exhibition period to be considered by Council. Public submissions received were considered at a Council Strategic and Corporate Committee meeting held 16 June 2025, prior to a Council meeting 23 June 2025, where the final Long Term Financial Plan 2025/26 - 2034/35(PDF, 4MB) was adopted, commencing 1 July 2025.

Your Say Woollahra is one of the ways Council involves the community in our decision making processes and provides updates on those decisions and plans. We invite you to join our online community engagement platform Your Say Woollahra.

Explore below for the latest updates about our budget and our financial challenges, including how we are addressing them.