Traders and businesses in Westmeath can unwrap their first Christmas present with the news that rates for next year will remain the same as for 2009, after the county council agreed the budget for 2010 at its last meeting of the decade on Monday (December 21 ).
After three months of number crunching by the Executive, and 14 hours of meetings with the councillors, the draft figures were finally accepted by a vote of 13-9, after Fianna Fail en masse opposed, believing they could shave another €200,000 from the burdened shoulders of the “lifeblood” - businesses - of the community.
“We have the lowest commercial rates in the country over the last 10 years,” said Mr Eddie Hynes, the county’s director of finance and one of the principal architects of the budget.
The rateable multiplier for businesses in the county (excluding Athlone ) is 52.79, with a Mullingar supplemental multiplier of 2.84. The net effective valuation is 145,788.
Due to the flooding, Athlone Town Council postponed its budget meeting until January 5. A similar non-mover is odds-on favourite for the result then.
Expenditure for the county for next year is put at €68.77m, which is €9m less than last year.
However, with income dropping as well, the total amount of rates to be levied was set at €7.696m. This figure was just €54,000 less than last year’s and it was deemed prudent not to pass this miniscule saving on to the 1,480 ratepayers in the county.
Eighty per cent of rate payers (1,196 ) pay less than €2,500 a year, while just three per cent of the rate payers pay just over half the total amount collected.
