This article is from page 31 of the 2011-12-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 31 JPG
KILRUSH Town Council have given themselves just 36 hours to come up with a solution to a € 24,000 hole in the local authority’s budget or face the possible closure of Kilrush Town Council.
Councillors were unable to pass the 2012 budget at last Thursday night’s meeting of the local authority and were also unable to schedule a follow-up meeting before the evening of January 3, 2012.
The council is statutorily required to pass a budget within 21 days of being presented with the draft budget – meaning the council must have a balanced set of figures for 2012 in place before January 5.
This leaves the council just 36 hours to find a way pass the budget and little or no wiggle room to defer a decision on January 3. It is not clear what would happen should the local authority be unable to pass a budget before the 21 day deadline but in theory all operations undertaken by the council could be brought to a halt.
The € 24,000 hole in the budget came as a result of call by councillors for a number of cuts to arts and community schemes to be reversed and a cut of two per cent to the local rate by introduced. A second proposal for a rates cut of one per cent would mean a hole of € 16,000 in the budget, while the restoration of a number of arts and community projects by themselves would leave a budget deficit of between € 5,000 and € 6,000.
The difficulty began when local councillor Tom Prenderville (FF) suggested that a one per cent rates cuts would be of benefit to local businesses.
“We know that business people are struggling this year and they will not be able to pay their rates next year. If we continue like this we will erode our rates base because people won’t be able to stay in business,” he said.
“I think, as a gesture, if we were to reduce out commercial rate by one per cent it would send a message to business people that we are on their side.”
This sentiment was shared by Cllr Mairead O’Brien (Ind) who said that she would prefer a two per cent rate cut for 2012.
According to town clerk John Corry, the two per cent rate cut would result in a rates reduction of just € 2 per week for the vast majority of businesses in Kilrush – 201 of the 241 businesses.
When asked how the money could be raised they suggested cuts to the tourism development and promotion fund, savings made from the reduced cost of maintaining council houses and a possible increase in revenue from planning applications.
“Everything comes with a cost, we are looking at a reduction of € 17,000 in next year’s budget as a result of the introduction of free parking, it will be very difficult to find a one per cent reduction,” said town manager Nora Kaye.
“At the moment we have just under 74 per cent collection in rates – there are a lot of people now on a phased payment and they will not have their rates paid by the end of the year. I think that it will be a very difficult task to find € 16,000, never mind to find € 24,000.”