SNTC Budget now online!

Normally I have a go at SNTC for one reason or another. This time I'm not. The Town Council has put the Final Budget online. So I'm congratulating SNTC for a big step forward in informing the St Neots residents on where their money is likely to be spent.

The Conservative Alternative Part Deux

In the ever excellent News and Crier there a couple of letters from the Conservatives Town Councillors. One is from Leader of the Opposition, Jennifer Bird and one from Barry Chapman.

The first letter is from Jennifer Bird. Having read through this I would like to know the following:

• Does her stance on the so-called bodge-up job of the Eaton Socon Church Car Park mean that a future Conservative run Town Council would use Taxpayers money for a church car park?
• You say unexpected items of obviously occurs. So how much would you put by as a contingency?
• Income from letting of the ECC is an estimate. What is your estimate?
• The Priory Centre gets a subsidy. In the budget just passed this subsidy was increased by £11.5k. Contrary to your letter, the Priory Centre in 2008/09 under shot its budget by £85,000. With this undershooting do you still feel this budget is not enough?

Lastly, I disagree with your statement that the Liberal Democrats have made the decision to close the public toilets. These facilities are owned and run by HDC and it is HDC which decided to end this service. All Jennifer Bird is doing is defending her Conservative Party colleagues decision on HDC to try and introduce a Conservative Stealth Tax on St Neots.

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Onwards with Cllr Barry Chapman and his letter.

With Barry's letter I have some sympathy and agree with some of what he is saying. Where I differ is over the new residents in the annexed areas for 1/4/10. The residents in the area annexed from Eynesbury Hardwicke Parish had every right to get their Parish Council to provide these facilities. Their Parish Council didn't. The residents paid zero in the parish portion of their Council tax. The SNTC average was £87.55. I feel it is wrong for the hard pressed SNTC taxpayer to pick up this tab for these residents. Apparently, Cllr Barry Chapman does thinks this is alright.

If Cllr Chapman wants more information on what EHPC didn't do he should contact his colleagues, Cllr Ursell and Cllr C. Hutton. Bob Barnes (letter in about Church Car Park) was Chairman of EHPC. He should be a good source of information.

Where I feel Cllr Chapman missed his attack is on Cllrs Giles and Thorpe 2008/09 casino budget. The reason SNTC is having to raid the windfall is the mess these two made of the finances of SNTC during their reign. The public toilets closure is clearly a Conservative HDC decision. The Church car park is again a waste of taxpayer's money and should be paid by the church.

In my opinion this budget is a fair reflection of the running costs of SNTC. I feel it is deficient in not having a capital budget which will cause problems in the future. I feel the Conservatives have not come up with a clear alternative to this budget.

The truth behind the Town Council budget as reported by Hunts Post.

In the Hunts Post, page 11, the paper writes about the recent Town Council budget setting meeting. The articles says:

WITH the country still recovering from the recession, councillors in St Neots have voted to cut their share of the Council Tax to help people through the financial downturn. snrednek says: Err not quite!

From April 1, residents in Band D homes will pay £3.36 a year less for services provided by St Neots Town Council. snrednek says: TRUE for current residents. Not for those being annexed.

The Liberal Democrat Town Council Leader Julia Hayward is quoted as saying:

Councillor Julia Hayward told the meeting the aim of the budget was to ensure people had more money in their pockets during a time of economic gloom. snrednek says: Except those being annexed.

“We have had to be mindful that we are nationally in the midst of a recession and that people are concerned about the money in their pocket,” she said. snrednek says: If they were that mindful they would have cut further. Instead there was an underlying increase in budget of £53,151 or a 6.8% rise. This is masked by the extra £85,000 they are getting from the annexed residents.

Cllr Hayward said the Council Tax decrease had been made possible by “tightening up” on council spending, including a £14,000 saving by taking grounds maintenance in-house. snrednek says: The Town Council sent me a letter identifying £95,000 of extra costs. At best this is taking £14,000 off the £95,000 it cost yearly to take this service in house! So it still costs the Council taxpayers an extra £81,000 a year.

On the other hand the Conservatives weren't much better.

David Harty suggested the budget should not be adopted until a council staffing review was complete,.. snrednek says: Legally the council has to set a budget.

Cllr Barry Chapman said: “Eynesbury and Loves Farm residents will not even get a bench or bus shelter let alone the community facilities those areas have long waited for and desperately need,”. snrednek says: Cllr Chapman should talk to Cllr Ursell and Cllr Hutton who are Parish Councillors in charge of EHPC (ends 1st April 2010) as to why Eynesbury residents wheren't provided with these communities facilities under their rule!

SNTC should send a welcome letter to the annexed residents.

With the Town Council budget passed I feel it is would be good if one of the first actions of SNTC is to welcome the new residents from 1st April 2010 to St. Neots. I would strongly suggest this is done by a letter or leaflet to each house affected by this annexation.

Otherwise, come March, when the new Council Tax bill start dropping on the doormats then there will be little explosions as residents find out how much they will have to pay. Those residents from Eynesbury Hardwicke will see the
Parish/Town part of theirCouncil Tax bill rise from 0 to £84.24 Band D (infinite % increase). Whilst the Love's Farm residents will see their Band D Council Tax rise from £16.95 to £84.24. This equates to a 397% increase.

Arguments over the amount of reserves?

SNTC needs reserves. That is a fact. The amount of reserves needed by the Town Council is debatable. Reserves are there for many different reserves. The main reason is if something unexpected happens. The Priory Centre burns to the ground or something major like that. The Town Council therefore has money to enable it to keep going during a crisis. The amount of reserves depends on a few factors.

1. The robustness of the budget. The longer the history of good budgeting the less reserves are needed.
2. The activities of the Council. If it is a very active Town Council with lots of staff it needs to have higher reserves.
3. How big is the budget/precept. The larger the Council the less reserves are needed. The smaller the Council the larger the reserves needed.
4. Precept payments aren't immediate. The Council tells HDC how much it needs (The Precept). Whilst the Council Tax is collected in various ways from April onwards, it is paid to the Town Council twice a year in May and November. So reserves are used enable cash flow.

The actual working out of reserves is not an exact science. I would suggest the minimum reserves needed is 20% of the precept (before use of reserves). This would equate to £171,000. The current reserves are forecast to be £211,000. This has been cast as adequate. I agree with that assessment.

In reality the Town Council needs more than just minimum reserves. It should be remembered the Town Council has other reserves which are allocated to specific projects.

Good Budget but it still has problems!

The Budget of 2008/09 was a mess. The Budget of 2009/10 was better, but caused problems. The Budget of 2010/11 is better but still has problems. The direction of travel is the right way. So what is wrong with this budget?

There are 2 problems. These are capital spending and council tax rates.

The budget is a fair reflection of the net cost of the current configuration of the Town Council. What it lacks is capital spending. This is an important part of the budget. Leaving this out only stores up trouble for the future. Leaving out capital projects means items aren't renewed only pushes the costs forward to future years. In effect there should have been a capital budget of roughly £100,000. This would have taken the precept up to £950,000. Leaving out capital projects will only come back to bite this Council in the future.

The Council Tax rates also look good with a 3.84% decrease. That is slightly untrue. This is true for me as a 2009/10 SNTC Taxpayer. But those annexed into SNTC from EHPC and SNRPC will be paying vastly higher amounts. I look at this differently from the Town Council. The 2010/11 new precept is £858,757 divided by the council tax base of 10,195 = £84.23 Band D. If I take the 2009/10 Precept of £803,576 and divide it by the same council tax base of 10,195 = £78.82

The way I see this is there has been an increase in Council tax from £78.82 to £84.23. This equals a rise of £5.41 or 6.8% increase. The precept rose from £803,576 to £858,757. An increase of £55,181 or 6.8%.

The increase in Council Tax Base is from 9178 to 10195 = 1017. This is a windfall of £85,662. The large rise comes from the annexation of the Town Ward of EHPC and Love's Farm.