The Smalltown and Dullbridge (SaD) Town Council White Elephant Enclosure Mismanagement Committee will be considering the budget for 2024/25 tomorrow and, for anyone hoping that it might need less of a subsidy, it’s bad news.
Income for the year is estimated at £71,594, an improvement on last year’s £68,594 but which seems low compared to 2022/23, when the budget showed income was estimated at £60,894 but final year end figures showed that, during that financial year, income from the WEE was actually £105,894.
The incredibly healthy end of year income for 2022/23 which, less expenditure left a shortfall of only £90,694, meant that the WEE shouldn’t have needed the contentious £170,094 subsidy for 2023/24. However the 2023/24 figures were based on a much lower estimated income of £68,594, so will the actual income for 2023/24 also show a healthy uplift at year end and shouldn’t the estimated income for the next financial year be more in the region of £120,000? If so then the WEE will not require such a high subsidy as detailed in the final calculation.
Expenditure for the year is estimated to be £249,197 – with the wages bill alone accounting for some £116,394 of the total. All of this means that for the financial year 2024/25 the WEE will require a subsidy from Council Tax payers of £177,294.
Last year, in order to avoid passing on the full increase to residents, SaD Town Council agreed to take part of the money from their savings account to make up the difference. At the time, residents were assured that the WEE would do much better this year and therefore the same top up would not be required. In fact, the hope was that the WEE would do so well that money could be returned to the savings account in subsequent years.
When considering the 2023/24 budget, Chair of the WEE Mismanagement Committee, Deputy Dictator Cruella Sherry said “This is an awful lot of money. We need to make the WEE more sustainable. We have got to have a longer term plan.
That said, now we understand the running costs of the WEE, we clearly need to develop a longer term plan which bridges the gap.”
Unfortunately the ‘Long Term Plan’ is taking a very long time to make an appearance. Even the Business Plan, which Cllr Robert Not-Bothered said he could write in ten minutes, has yet to be produced.
Taking the money from savings to fund the WEE for 2024/25 is likely to cause problems, as the SaD TC savings account should never go below three months total costs and if costs go up then so does that minimum.
It seems the BeFuddled-led SaD TC are going to struggle to balance the books to cover the cost of the WEE, let alone any extra services taken on from the All-New-Yet-Unimproved Scrooge Cuonty Council, without a huge increase in the precept.