RATES 'CRISIS'?

Councillors and officials are battling to keep the rates down after an opening projection of a whopping 22 per cent rise this year.

And in order to prune down any rates rise to a target of less than five per cent this year they would have to slash their expenditure by over 800,000.

Rumours have been swirling around about the nature of any cuts and there has been a fear that services could go.

And the situation regarding the size of the Council’s cash reserves has also been the subject of much debate with claims made that the cash was gobbled up in recent years to keep previous rate rises low.

The rates meetings are held behind closed doors and the press and public, very often, can only go on what is minuted in official Council reports of the discussions which, on occasions, provide basic details.

But one unsubstantiated claim this week was that, as it stands, the rates rise may have been brought down from the 22 per cent figure to less than ten per cent rise - 9.93 per cent was the exact figure quoted.

Meanwhile, over at Moyle District Council in Ballycastle, after a meeting last night (Monday), there will not be a rates rise after a historic 0% figure was agreed.

But the big interest has been in Ballymoney where the size of the task facing Council officials and staff was, in their own words, daunting.

A further meeting was due to have been held this morning (Tuesday) "in committee" (behind closed doors) when an updated estimate and further options papers were to be presented.

A further meeting is arranged for February 10 for further consideration and to strike the rate but it may be that further meetings will be arranged for further consideration before the rate is set. The deadline for setting of the rate is February 15.

Council minutes relating to a key rates meeting on January 11 - a marathon session which lasted an amazing five and a half hours - said the feared domestic rate rise of 22 per cent was down to 13 per cent at that stage.

Councillors were told the Council faced several ‘very large inescapable’ increases in budget due to factors such as the need to rebuild Council reserves; provide for landfill closure; extra landfill tax and salaries and wages increases.

Councillors heard ‘smaller, but significant, increases are needed for building maintenance, rates, energy and utilities’.

At the meeting, the Chief Executive John Dempsey, indicated the task of getting any rise down to five per cent was ‘huge’ which would mean a further saving of 400,000.

Mr Dempsey said that would not be achieved by tinkering or by cutting 100s or even 500s here and there ‘and cannot be achieved without making major cuts to existing services’.

At the January 11 meeting it was said that even if the Council halted making contributions to various groups they would still need to save an extra 170,000 to hit the five per cent rise target.

Councillors were told it will cost a total of 424,000 if they proceed with capital projects including The Robert Dunlop Memorial Garden.

Discussion arose around where savings could be made and, according to the minutes of the January 11 meeting, the provision of Christmas Trees to villages was mentioned.

The minutes stated that at one stage of the meeting there was a ‘general consensus that public facing services should be protected and the present level of service should not be reduced’.

The minutes said it was agreed to suspend collection of the ‘brown bin’ service from November to March which would give a saving of over 16,000 but consideration of ‘removal or reduced services’ at amenity sites was deferred.

There had been unconfirmed speculation that the possibility of closing the Joey Dunlop Leisure Centre on Sundays was being considered to save cash.

But, all that was said in the January 11 minutes was ‘six options in respect of leisure services, cultural services, summer scheme and community support, totalling 36,500’ were not accepted.

And the minutes said councillors also agreed not to accept options regarding councillor and mayor allowances and official visits which could have saved up to 9,800.

At that stage the Chief Executive invited councillors to put forward suggestions for services they wished to review or reduce or spend areas they would wish management to review.

The minutes state the following areas were identified by councillors:-

* Consider alternative arrangements for delivering services/projects within existing resources by not filling posts currently vacant.

* Review level of course/conference, travel provision across all services.

* Review overtime working.

A rates meeting due to have been held last Monday did not take place. It is understood a staff member was unable to attend, reportedly due to illness.