It is expected that commercial rates and local property tax will remain the same as last year after the Galway City Council published its draft budget for 2018.
The budget sees an expenditure of €77.9 million being set aside for the day-to-day running of the city.This is an increase of €2.7 million from last year.
The budget, which councillors will vote whether or not to adopt at next Monday’s council meeting, expects rates and local government property tax to generate more than half (€40.6 million ) of the council’s income.
Goods and services as well as grants and subsidies will make up the rest of the council’s expected 2018 income at €23 million and €14.2 million respectively. Housing and building, and recreation and amenity are the biggest areas of expenditure in the budget. More than €21 million will be set aside for housing and building, an increase of €2.85 million from last year’s budget.
This area will see the maintenance and improvement of the council’s housing stock with phase one of the shallow retrofit energy efficient programme (insulation ) being completed and the commencement of phase two works (window and door replacement ) beginning in 2018.
A planned boiler replacement programme is at the tendering stage and similar budgetary provision has been made for 2018 to enable a reserve fund to be established for the works required.
Addressing emergency accommodation requirements and the needs of rough sleepers remains a priority for the council in 2018, and in excess of €3 million is being allocated to the Western Homeless Region (Galway city, Galway county, Mayo, and Roscommon ) and a significant amount of the funding will be expended on services in the city.
Recreation and amenity will be increased by €440,000 this year to €16.5 million. The resources of recreation and amenity department will be used to upgrade existing machinery for the council’s maintenance services, the continued upgrade of the network of existing playgrounds, as well as the completion of three sports capital projects at Renmore soccer club, Fahy’s Field, and Cappagh Park pitch.
New projects have been earmarked for funding in the 2018 budget which include the extension of cemeteries (€100,000 ), the implementation of the alcohol consumption bye-law (€33,000 ), and solar compaction bins (€50,000 ). Increased funding will be provided for the European Region of Gastronomy in 2018 (€60,000 ), tourism promotion (€30,000 ), improvement works at the Town Hall theatre (€70,000 ), and the extension of the Purple Flag programme to Salthill village (€10,000 ).
The city council also intends to hire extra staff next year, including community wardens, data protection, and marketing and tourism staff.
