Moray Council convener Allan Wright has written for the Press and Journal following the proposal to raise council tax by as much as 18% to help pay for vital services.
Allan Wright
I am hoping that the people of Moray will accept that a significant increase in council tax is a better option than wholesale reduction in services.
Quite frankly, the reduction by £5million in the grant we expected from the Scottish Government, leaving an £11million deficit in our budget, was too much, far too much, to be met by service cuts.
Just imagine Moray without any leisure facilities, no libraries, no swimming pools, no community centres.
Imagine Moray with no winter road treatments, no road maintenance.
Imagine Moray with no waste collections and no recycling.
All those complete cuts would just about give the savings that would be needed to balance the books.
I, and my administration colleagues, became convinced that we had to be bold and seek a solution that would protect all our services.
That is what we have done and we will propose a sharing agreement – we will contribute £5million from our reserves and implement already agreed efficiencies and savings of about £1.2million while council tax payers will contribute about £5million extra.
It sounds a lot, and it is some 18%.
But I would ask people to please look at it as 2% for every year of the council tax freeze, or as £204 a year or £17 a month on a Band D house like mine.
And remember that this agreement comes with a firm commitment that there will be no cuts in our services, although we will continue to look for efficiencies.
I think that is a reasonable deal in the circumstances and I hope the people of Moray will see it that way.