Budget cuts needed to ‘plug’ council coffers

‘HUGE CHALLENGES’ Cllr Peter Flynn believes ‘drastic measures’ are needed.

Councillors asked to come up with cuts to bridge massive deficit

Anton McNulty

Councillors have been warned to ‘get their thinking caps on’ to come up with cuts in the 2020 Budget to help plug the €2.7 million deficit in Mayo County Council’s finances.
Mayo county councillors face some tough choices before adopting the Council’s Budget 2020 next month after they were informed that preliminary projections indicate a deficit of €2.7 million.  
Speaking at yesterday’s (Monday) monthly meeting of Mayo County Council, Westport-based councillor Peter Flynn predicted the deficit would be closer to €3.2 million when rate-collection shortfalls are taken into account, and he warned that the only way to ‘plug the gap’ is through cuts.
“To come up with €3.2 million right now, the only option open to us is to increase rates by 10 percent, and I don’t think anyone in this room will agree to such a proposal or anything close that,” he said.
“There are huge challenges ahead of us on how we are going to plug the gap, and we really do have to come up with fairly drastic measures. I would appeal to everyone to put their thinking cap on on how we are going to figure that out. Rates in my view cannot be back on the agenda, I think that is fair to say that on behalf of everyone in the room. The only way we can come up with it [deficit closure] is with cuts to make that gap of €3.2 million achievable.”

‘Critical’
Councillors previously rejected a proposal by the Council executive to increase the Local Property Tax by 15 percent to generate additional income of €1.56 million to reduce the gap.
The first budget meeting of Mayo County Council will take place on Monday, November 25, but in advance of that it was agreed at yesterday’s monthly meeting of Mayo County Council to have a budget workshop on November 19.
Cllr Flynn, who previously worked as a financial controller with Allergan in Westport, said that every councillor needed to focus on how they were going to close the gap, which he described as a critical issue.
Cllr Flynn said the Fine Gael members were happy to meet with the other councillors to try to agree a budget – an invitation that was not ruled out by the other members. Cathaoirleach of Mayo County Council Cllr Brendan Mulroy said it was important that everyone got involved  in the budgetary process.
“I would really appreciate if everyone would participate in this process so that at the end of the day, whatever budget we do agree will be our budget and not just one particular side of the chamber’s budget. The people of Mayo would appreciate that of us at least. [The] onus is on everyone that the budget is delivered for the betterment of the people of this county,” he said.

Bleak
The stark reality of the Council’s bleak budgetary predicament was outlined at the meeting when representatives from Croí were given no commitment from the councillors when they sought between €20,000 and €25,000 in 2020 to fund a pilot screening project that is being rolled out in Co Mayo.
Pat O’Donnell from Croí explained that the west of Ireland heart-and-stroke charity is looking to introduce an early-screening programme similar to Breastcheck with the aim of  detecting heart problems before they reach a chronic stage.
“We have set a target of raising €100,000 each year for the next three to five years and that is going very well with the partnership with business. It would be remiss of me not to ask for your support,” he said.
However, while there was lots of support from councillors for the idea of the project, they did not commit to providing the financial support that Mr O’Donnell sought.
“From a council point of view we would be delighted to support you anyway possible, but unfortunately it will probably be more moral support rather than financial support the way we are right now. Who knows, the world may change and this might be a rosier place next January, but right now [the budget] is not in a great way,” Cllr Flynn replied to his former Allergan colleague.
Independent councillor Michael Kilcoyne said that the council had not had its block grant allocation from the Government increased in five years and as a result ‘money is tight’.
Chief Executive Peter Hynes said that they will have to ‘wait and see’ what they can find in the budget for Croí, but he stressed that the Council supports the work the charity does.