The City of Playford is encouraging the community to have its say on the draft Annual Business Plan and Budget 2021/22 and draft Long Term Financial Plan 2021/22 currently out for public consultation.

The draft Annual Business Plan outlines the services Council will deliver to the community in the next 12 months.

City of Playford Mayor Glenn Docherty said Council has developed the business plan in line with the decision-making filters and community themes outlined in the Strategic Plan 2020-24.

“We have developed a balanced budget that supports the growth and renewal of the city and the provision of quality services that the community relies on,” Mayor Docherty said. “The City of Playford’s expenditure budget is $110M, most of which supports the delivery of existing services such as city maintenance, waste and recycling, public health and more.”

About $21.9M of the draft budget is set to be spent on renewing or replacing existing assets such as kerbs, footpaths, roads and recreational sporting facilities.

“During the development of our Strategic Plan in 2020, our community told us they wanted to focus on their foundational needs, and these have been used to determine what new services or assets will be introduced in 2021/22,” Mayor Docherty said.

The draft Annual Business Plan includes a number of new projects that have grant applications pending, with notifications due from the Australian and SA Governments between now and June. There will be a need for Council to adjust the budget throughout the year to deal with these funding announcements. Final decisions on progressing grant funded projects will be dependent on whether the applications are successful or not.

The draft Annual Business Plan provides details on how we will fund the inflationary costs for our existing services, new services and assets, and cost pressures. These additional costs to our budget have been partially offset with over $1M of continuous improvement savings as well as $0.4M of growth revenue. This has resulted in a proposed rate increase of 1.25 per cent for 2021/22.

Council has achieved a sustainable operating surplus since 2019/20. The positive impact of operating surpluses over the last few years have accumulated to help manage Council’s overall debt in 2021/22. The City of Playford is committed to maintaining this trend as a key component of Council’s long term finance strategy.

The Playford community is encouraged to find out more and have their say about the draft Annual Business Plan and Budget and draft Long Term Financial Plan by visiting https://playford.engagementhub.com.au. Consultation opens as of Monday 3 May and all feedback must be received by 30 May 2021.