Galway City Council to spend almost €100m next year
From this week's Galway City Tribune - It will cost almost €100 million to run the Galway City in 2020 – an increase of almost €12m on this year’s figure – but there is no proposed hike in commercial rates or in Local Property Tax.
The nuts and bolts of the City Council’s 2020 Draft Budget will be threshed out by councillors at a meeting next Monday night, at which Chief Executive Brendan McGrath will outline the increasing costs of managing the city.
In his summary report circulated to councillors, Mr McGrath has presented details of a 13.4% increase in expenditure in the 2020 Budget – up by €11.8m in 2019 to €99.7m next year.
“The additional expenditure is funded through grant funding, transfers from existing reserves, and increased rates income from new and increased commercial property valuations,” the Chief Executive outlined to councillors.
He also pointed out that the Draft Budget had a particular focus on housing, a range of transport related interventions, public realm and recreational facilities, sports infrastructure, climate action and the 2020 Capital of Culture programme.
The Chief Executive also confirmed that ‘additional recruitment’ – which commenced in 2018 – had led to a net increase of 64 staff members with a significant number of those assigned to the areas of transport, flood prevention, cemetery development and the museum expansion. This is a preview only. To read the details on budget spending, see this week's Galway City Tribune. Buy a digital edition of this week's paper here, or download the app for Android or iPhone.