Councillor John Taylor has made a number of factually
incorrect statements regarding Kirkburton Parish Council’s finances.
He states that the Council reserves should be 25% of the
Annual precept (the amount the Parish raises from the Council Tax payer each
year) . In fact it should be 25% of the planned expenditure. This is an
important difference as it is up to the Parish each year to decide how much it
will or will not spend. Councillor Taylor correctly notes that Parish Council
reserves were reduced but fails to acknowledge that these reserves were
approved by an Independent Auditor of the Parish Council finances. £4k of that
reduction was to cover the costs of improvements to Kirkburton Library as part
of the previous administrations plans to save the service for local people and
as such is a proper use of reserves. Currently Parish reserves are expected to
be £31,384 well within the tolerance of expected expenditure. Before Councillor
Taylor says that this is down to the cuts he has introduced these only
account for £2k of savings to date. Cllr Taylor also states that the
reduction in the Environment Budget was about a supposed financial
crisis. The reality is that this money was re- allocated to a project to install
defibrillators across the Parish. It wasn’t used to fill some mythical hole in
the Parish Council’s budget.
Cllr Taylor keeps referring to the budgets being
agreed by the previous Green Party Administration. The fact is that no Parish
Councillors voted against it including the 2 Conservative Parish Councillors
present who actually voted in favour. In reality Cllr Taylor in my opinion does
not really have concern for the Community or the Parish Council in mind here.
This is all about the Conservatives desire to discredit the Green Party in
advance of next May’s Local Elections.
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