The budget for 2009 has been passed by members of Kilkenny County Council but not without some ado.
Two private meetings, which were not open to the public, were held prior to the passing of the budget, which proposer and Fine Gael Party Whip Mary Hilde Cavanagh said she proposed ‘with reluctance and a heavy heart.’
The issues that were disputed were not revealed to the media but it’s understood they were related to the roads fund.
The budget was finally passed by the members some time later.
Cllr Cavanagh said, “we have a strong sense of responsibility and a civic duty to oversee local government and we are not happy with what has to be seen against the background of the current economy and our budget was framed around this.
“We would love to see all the road projects completed, and the roads fund caused us the most trouble in terms of spend,” she said.
“We are happy to report that there is to be no increase in commercial rates as we can see that businesses are already struggling, and we are trying to keep people in business. Our main priority is to maintain jobs,” she added.
Meanwhile Fianna Fáil Party Whip Michael Lanigan said of the budget, “we are in extraordinary times.”
He said that a huge effort had been made on all sides to act prudently when deciding this year’s budget.
“There was an attempt to balance things by continuing to deliver with the expenditure available to us, despite the obvious reductions as a result of less government funding. This budget is not without a strategy, and we have increased housing provision by €300,000, while water service provision has also increased by €800,000.
“It will stand to us to roll out development levies on roads in each of the electoral areas. We have to prepare the ground to allow us to take advantage of a future up-turn. We would love to see all the road projects completed and the road fund caused us the most difficulty in this year’s budget,” he said.
The provision for roads in the budget is €18.6 million - €2.3 million of which will come from local contributions.
County Manager Joe Crockett said, “ the current Development Contribution Scheme had projected annual development charge receipts of €11.4 million however, with the sudden and sharp reduction in development activity, it now appears likely that the council will collect no more than €5 million per annum for the foreseeable future. This very severe reduction in receipts has an impact on local funding available for infrastructural investment which has been factored into the draft 2009 - 2013 capital budget assumptions, however, this situation will be kept under continual review,” he said.
The total expenditure of the draft 2009 budget amounts to €76.2 million which is a decrease of €0.9 million on last year’s budget. There was a decrease of 1.2 million in funding from the Local Government Fund.
