FINANCE bosses will raise council tax by nearly five per cent – and borrow £10 million from reserves – to balance next year’s budget.
Rotherham Borough Council is set to increase the levy by 4.99 per cent – just below the five per cent threshold for a local referendum.
The increase includes three per cent which is ring-fenced for adult social care and follows a 3.95 per cent total hike last year.
The move will generate a total of £95 million in council tax for RMBC for 2017/18 – equivalent to 46 per cent of the revenue budget.
Rotherham Politics 
when the government lets them raise an extra 3% over and above the 2.99% they charge every year anyway, its no big shock at the rise. What the Electorate has not grasped yet is they are being double taxed for their Adult services. You pay for your parents care through the National Insurance, and then pay again through your council tax. It would be it would be interesting to see to compare the previous years figures. Have they reduced the original funding for adult care and shifted it somewhere else?. If so, this would mean that in real terms the Adult care has actually gone down.
Borrowing £10 million from reserves to balance the budget is a very odd thing to do because they will either have to rob the reserves again next year, or make £10 million savings next year, on top of the money not coming from government. With a cap at 2.99% they are going to have a problem.
On top of this they have just bought another two units on the Advanced Manufacture Park,(the last lot cost £4 million) and they are proposing to buy up the Tesco site, no doubt to sell it on at a loss to “attract business”
RMBC are already massively overspent, so why is the Finance director still in post and why is the Councillor who`s portfolio covers the Finance not being held to account.
The commissioners seem happy to allow RMBC to run with massive overspends, how odd.
LikeLike
Need to get your facts right. As in Anston Parish Council you are misleading people again. Lies and half truths again. When will you learn?
LikeLike
What facts are wrong? It is simply not fair to accuse anyone of being less than truthful without the disputed facts identified and your truth stated.
LikeLike
I see ‘julian’ is trolling on here as well.
LikeLike
whilst in the far distant county of Surrey:
Council tax referendum: £93m cuts AS WELL AS potential 15% tax rise
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/council-tax-referendum-93m-cuts-12548702
LikeLike
Surrey Council made no additional increase for 2016 / 17 hence the bigger increase for 2017/18
LikeLike
Sorry, but so what?
Did you see what happened to their bus services in late December 2016? A complete car crash*.
( I spend some 2 or so months a year in Elmbridge, and whilst I have no time for the majority tory councillors, the quality of services had for years been exceptional.)
_________
Overnight our two an hour buses to Surbiton – on the very fast commuter line into Waterloo, became two a day.
They have backed off now and will soon be restoring something like the old service, but …
My real interest now is seeing just how the vote in the local referendum will go, and just how it splits between the outer and close to London area.
LikeLike
Lets save ourselves a third of a million and get rid of a councillor in every ward plus how much have the commissioners cost us over the last 2 years ? How much of this 4.99% is being earmarked to be paid out in compensation to victims of CSE ? which would not have occurred if the Labour controlled council had listen to these children over the years ? we’re stilly paying out for councillors who were deemed not fit for purpose and had to resign but who have now gone on to bigger better things helps tho if you actually live with the leader of the council eh ? No heads have yet rolled p*ss up and brewery ring a bell ?
LikeLike
Julian, not your real name is it. I did get my facts wrong, but not only am I big enough to admit my mistakes, I do so under my own name, not under a fake name so you cannot be held to account. no doubt you will do on here,what you do on Anstonparishcouncilwatch, post under false names.
whilst ever I use my real name, and you hide, like a coward behind a false one, I will always have the upper hand on truth.
The percentage figures should have read, 1.9% and 3%.
LikeLike