Aberdeenshire Council will meet for showdown tax talks today as members prepare to wrangle over the £540million budget.
The annual budget discussions have been overshadowed by a political row over business rates and council tax.
The local authority’s SNP-Labour administration is proposing to finally end a nine-year freeze on council tax and raise it by 2.5% across all bands. That is on top of increases on higher bands already announced by the Scottish Government.
But the proposals come as the council must also consider slashing £24million from its 2017 spending plans.
Co-leader Richard Thomson has already defended his plan to raise taxes and cut spending at the same time.
“After nine years, the time is right to look again at the council tax,” he said. “We’ve put that 2.5% proposal there. Inevitably, some services are going to be delivered in a different way, but this is a budget that strikes the best balance between competing tensions.”
Last week a deal was struck between the Scottish Green Party and the government in Holyrood to hand back around £8million to Aberdeenshire Council in a bid to alleviate a dramatic rise in business rates.
Some hospitality firms are facing an increase of more than 200% in their bills.
However opposition leaders say the extra cash from Holyrood cannot be used to ease the burden on businesses because it is a “one off”. Instead they say they will not put up council tax despite having the power to do so for the first time in nearly a decade.
Conservative councillor Jim Gifford, leader of the Alliance opposition group, said: “The difference this year is that, instead of having a council tax freeze imposed on us, we are having – or specifically 42% of our residents are having – a council tax increase imposed on us.
“We have chosen not to inflict further tax rises on people who are already going to be paying between 7.7% more on band E houses and 23.1% more on band H houses.”
Councillors will meet at Woodhill House today to vote on the authority’s 2017 spending plans.
Other proposals include slashing £1million from both roads maintenance and waste collection budgets, and councillors hope to save £400,000 by creating a charitable trust to manage sports facilities.