Kerry Council to raise burial charges and step up parking enforcement in effort to balance its budget
Close to €144m will be spent and earned by Kerry County Council in 2019 but balancing the budget has “presented many difficulties”, councillors in Tralee have been told.
Demands for more services and growing dependence on locally sourced income were among the challenges, council CEO Moira Murrell said.
Income from car parking charges and fines are being increasingly relied upon for extra revenue and enforcement will continue to be stepped up, the meeting heard.
Burial charges are also set to increase amid improvements to the council’s 157 graveyards.
In September councillors, by the narrowest of margins voted down the 5% increase in the Local Property Tax proposed by management, which would have brought in an extra €700,000.
Councillors were reminded that their decision to return to the baseline meant the council would get an allocation of €13.78m, not more than €14.4m.
In many cases projects and requests for additional staff have either been delayed or cannot be accommodated in 2019, Ms Murrell said.
Car parking charges and fines have been forecast to bring in just over €3m with enforcement of parking charges to continue to be stepped up.
Last year the target income from street and local authority car parks was just over €2.9m and in 2015 it had been €2.7m.
Rates account for over €41m, or 29% of income, and Government grants and subsidies account for a similar figure.
Payroll - salaries, pension costs and travel and subsistence - will account for almost €68m or 47% of the overall expenditure.
Councillors have asked for a detailed report into what was described as “an extensive portfolio of land for the construction of housing,” which is costing the council hundreds of thousands of euro in interest.
Some €4.85m is being set aside to fund the fire service operation in Kerry next year, with additional sums to be put aside for training as this is one of the key services, the meeting heard.
It responded to 752 incidents last year, including road traffic collisions and chimney fires - an increase of 8%. This included some 189 gorse fires - an increase of almost 9% on the same period in 2017, the meeting was told.
Minor improvements will be carried out to the 10 fire stations in the county, home to 105 retained and three whole-time firefighters. New fire appliances are also being delivered.
The council’s tourism development unit plays an increasingly important role and close to €1m has been set aside for salaries and other costs.
Objecting to the increase in charges for burial plots from €425 to €500, councillor Johnny Healy-Rae remarked: "Ye failed to get the money out of the living and ye are trying to raise it now out of the dead.”
The 2019 budget was voted through with 20 councillors voting for, five against and eight absentees.
