The elected members of Mayo County Council and the executive of the council will sit down today at 2pm, to try and thrash out the budget for the council for 2009. The council met for four hours on Monday and managed to get through only four of the programmes for consideration and no agreement was reached on the budget.
Outlining the council executive’s proposed budget for the year, County Manager Des Mahon told the meeting that the county council would be looking to increase the rate on industrial and commercial property from 70.16 to 71.56, an increase of two per cent of the current rate. He also outlined that the council would have an expected expenditure of €146,562,503 in 2009 which represents a cut of 5.1 per cent on the 2008 level. The council would also have significantly less income in 2009 compared with 2008 levels and it is expected that they will have €2.4 million less from the local government fund a reduction of six per cent. A reduction of €1.7 million in gate fees and landfill tonnage, €750,000 less in planning fees and compliance with Government directives would cost them an extra two million euro.
Mr Mahon also outlined that the council had a captial works programme that would cost around €85 million planned for 2009. These captial works are broken down into housing €20 million, roads €13 million, water services €37 million, refuse disposal €2 million euro, piers and harbours €1 million euro, fire service €1 million euro, libraries €1 million euro and other projects €10 million. According to the budget the council would gain 63.57 per cent of its income (€93,157, 086 ) from state grants including roads grants, the local government fund and housing grant subsidies. They also expect to collect 16.91 per cent of income from revenue collection in the county from services such as tip head charges, housing rents, water charges, and planning fees. The other 19.52 per cent would come from other works carried out by the council. Today’s council meeting will see both the executive and the elected members trying to get a budget sorted out for the county. However the two per cent rate increase could be a major stumbling block as the councillors will resist this increase.
