Longford County Council to spend almost €70m as it adopts ‘largest ever budget’

Longford County Council is set to deal with over €119 million between revenue (€49.95m) and capital expenditure (€69.7m) in the coming year, the elected members were told at the annual budget meeting on Monday.

With local elections looming the members were pleased to hear there are no proposals to increase commercial rates or the Local Property Tax rates to balance the books.

This is the last budget in the life span of this council, whose members were elected in May 2019. Four years on the local authority expenditure has skyrocketed from €45.2m to €69.7m.

The largest category increase in the council budgets is in the areas of Road Transport and Safety area where the '19 budget was €11.2m, while the expected spend for '24 is €20.8m.

Housing and Building, Development Management, and Environmental Services have all experienced significant increases.
Director of Finance, John McKeon, drew members attention to the fact the budget expenditure will increase by €5.28M for the forthcoming year, with the total spend of €69.7m. This represents a spend of €1,492 per citizen.

Council income for '24 is estimated at €49.95m, meaning a shortfall of €19.78m.

The summary of expenditure shows the local authorities' sources of income from grants and subsidies has grown from below €13m in 2019 to €28.2m in 2023, and an expectation of it climbing to over €32.7 in 2024.

Members were told that the Local Property Tax (LPT) is maxed at 15%. The fact that 2024 is a Local Election Year and the cost of the election is one of the financial challenges faced by the local authority. The estimated cost of running the local election is in the region of €25,000.

The area of Housing Maintenance poses the single greatest challenge to the council's budget balancing skills. The elected representatives were told tender price inflation has risen by 22% in the last 18 months. Central Government funding under the voids programme is €11,000 per house, while the average cost per house is €41,138. With 71 houses earmarked for work, this is a significant difficulty for the council.

Other areas of high expenditure include the €365,000 for humanitarian crisis response, fire service increases totalling €826,000, climate change and flooding costs of €502,000 and a library services bill of €255,000.

The Director of Finance highlighted a number of sample of projects completed in 2023 include the Longford Connected Public Realm Enhancement Project (the town regeneration programme), Ballymahon Pobail le Cheile, Abbeyshrule Hub, Rose Cottage, Longford Skatepark and Aughnacliffe Heritage Park.

Mr McKeon described a “robust, flexible, prudent pro-business, pro-development and pro-community budget”. He said in the coming year the local authority will deliver in the areas of housing, social inclusion and tourism development.

Cathaoirleach Colm Murray commended the Director of Finance and staff on the budget saying: “A lot of hard work across the organisation has gone into the preparation of the budget. It's a group effort and takes a lot of negotiations with members to bring it forward.”

Cllr Murray added: “It's great not to have to increase the burden on local property tax payers and ratepayers.”

Cllr Paul Ross (FG) proposed the budget with Cllr Seamus Butler (FF) seconding. Cllr Ross described a “very positive budget for County Longford”.

Cllr Ross struck a note of caution in regard to the shortfall in the housing spend: “That gap in funding is a serious issue. The more successful we are at getting the voids issue addressed the more it is costing us. That is something the Minister has to work out.”

This sentiment was echoed by Cllr Peggy Nolan who said: “Every house has a €34,000 shortfall. That is going to eat away at our budget, it will make it hard to balance. We have to retrofit all our houses and the Department needs to step up to the plate immediately.”

Cllr Butler also highlighted the difficulty posed by the maintenance and refurbishment figures: “We can quote Mr Micawber from Oliver Twist praying something will turn up, and I hope it will, but it might be wise to suggest that within the housing expenditure we establish a revenue neutral balance from the overall table.”

Council Chief Executive Paddy Mahon commended the councillors for their support: “I want to thank the elected members for their support and confidence in the work of the Executive. It is ambitious and it reflects the ambition of the council. There is a significant increase in the budget, it's the largest ever budget put forward by the council. It does present challenges,” Mr Mahon concluded.

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