Galway County Council's €16m budget overspend
Galway County Council spent €16 million more than it budgeted for last year – with almost half of that down to waivers for rates.
In the last financial statement for 2021, it emerged that the local authority spent €152.6m for the year, against a budgeted expenditure of €136.6m.
The main areas where the budget ran over was €7.2m more given in waivers for rates, €3.6m for the Business Incentive Scheme and €5m more spent on roads.
Government initiatives to offset the impact of Covid helped rein in the overrun, allowing the Council to post a surplus of €20,315 for the 2021 books.
“All areas of council services came under pressure from increase service demands and unexpectedly higher input costs than had been anticipated,” head of finance of Galway County Council Ger Mullarkey stated.
“This led to overruns in certain areas but through expenditure control measures and recoupment of revenue incomes by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, it was possible to offset the negative impact.
“Particular difficulty was experienced in housing where the voids and energy retrofit programme resulted in an overspend.
“But payroll savings due to recruitment timing and recoupments from department for lost revenue more than compensated.”
Total expenditure was €884,000 greater than budgeted for in housing. Covid-19 had an adverse impact on parking income, resulting in income running at 50% of budget. Overall, there was an overrun of €308,000 in roads.
Chief Executive of Galway County Jim Cullen told councillors that the local authority would need an additional €20m to provide adequate services in the county. The budget for retrofitting of council houses would need at least another million to make significant progress.
To date Galway County Council has completed energy retrofits to 117 properties, with works in train on 14 properties with a further 30 at tender stage.
All properties that received the energy retrofits achieved a BER rating of A3 or higher.
At Gort Mhaoilir in Athenry 26 properties completed last week received a provisional BER rating of A. A further 34 properties will be tendered this year under the current retrofit programme.
Goss expenditure amounted to €80.7m, with housing and roads and transportation accounting for 90 per cent of total spend.
The councillors agreed to adopt the financial statement.