Mayo County Council has recorded a small surplus of just under €55,000 so far this year on its budget income and expenditure for the first six months of the year. Head of Finance for Mayo County Council, Peter Duggan gave the elected members a half-yearly update on the financial standing of the council at the July meeting of the authority last Monday. The council had adopted a budgeted spend of €120,085,841 for the year and up to the end of June, they had spent €55,287,675 and taken in €55,342,619.
The breakdown in collection of income, showed that €1,518,830 had been paid in rents, €2,000,000 in water charges, €4.62 million in rates, €2.99 million in landfill charges, €138,678 in fire charges and €135,756 in planning fees. The collection of rents, water charges, rates, landfill charges and planning fees were all above the level collected at this stage last year, while the collection of fire charges was down from 50.8 per cent of the budgeted total in 2012 to 38.5 per cent this year at the half way mark.
Mr Duggan also informed the meeting that the capital works carried out by the council had fallen by €5.5 million at the same stage as last year, with €12,432,565 spent to date compared to €17,934,990 in 2012. The reason for the reduction was the fall in grant aid for road works to the tune of €7.5 million, group water schemes by €1.2 million, arts grants by €470,000 and landfills by €270,000, while there was an increase in funding for water and sewerage schemes by €2,570,000 and voluntary housing by €1,410,000 to bring the reduction in spend on capital projects to the €5.5 million mark at the six month stage of the year.
