£2m cushion gives Rother a "window of opportunity"

News of the financial cushion emerged during a budget meeting of Rother District Council (RDC) in which members discussed staff pay cuts and blocked a 9,000 increase oncouncillors' allowances to stop the looming financial threat damaging services for Bexhill taxpayers.

A three per cent increase in Council Tax, equating to nine pence per week for Rother taxpayers, was recommended. This is likely to drop to 2.9 per cent before Cabinet approve it next month.

RDC head of finance Robin Vennard said: "We will come under a fair bit of pressure in 2010/11.

"There's substantial use of reserves to meet this shortfall.

"We have around 1.8-2million in the funds, which covers until 2011-12, on current usage. This gives us a window of opportunity to plan.The real philosophy is to build a sustainable budget, that doesn't rely on the peaks and troughs of the economy."

Rother's 2million reserve accumulated over five years from 2003, while interest rates were high.

Excess return from capital money, such as sales of housing stock, was put aside to shore up funds against the inevitable drop in interest rates.

The money has so far allowed Rother chief executive Derek Stevensto guarantee RDC staff there will be no compulsory redundancies, despite Lib Dem Cllr Sue Prochak's ominous warning on Monday: "There will need to be discussions next year. It has to mean staff losses."

Meanwhile neighbouring Hastings Borough Council (HBC) has been forced to cut five service heads and one corporate director in an effort to meet its growing deficits. Last year's management restructure saves them 400,000, but even this action failed to cover the 440,000 of itsreserves hoovered up by the 2009/10 budget. Hastings'potential deficit for 2010/11 has been put at 1million.

Chairman of RDC Cllr Martin Mooney, himself a chartered accountant, said: "This budget is absolutely a credit to the whole financial team.

"There are certain areas we have to look at. We can balance the budget next year maybe, because we still have some funds in the reserve, but the year after we have nowt. Where do we find the money? We have to find it locally."

He suggested future cuts should be biased towards lower paid staff, and joined calls from Cllrs Tony Ganly and Sue Prochak to freeze the increase on members allowances, a proposal that found unanimous support. The plans go before Cabinet next month.

What do you think about Rother's proposals? Do you agree with councillors that the budget is a credit to their team? Leave your comments below.