Tenbury Town Council - Budget Cuts?

Tenbury Town Council were struggling last night to prepare a balanced budget now their Golden Goose is due to stop laying.

Regular readers of this blog may remember that I have been urging the Town Council for several years to modernise their account procedures so that they can better understand where their (our) money is spent.

Previously they set a budget against one set of criteria but reported income against a completely different set.

I maintained as our democratically elected representatives it is up to them to decide what they subsidise and by how much, but I couldn't see how they were making informed decisions when the accounting was shrouded in such mystery.

One reason for the reluctance to publish clear accounts, is that maybe large sums of money are being spent subsidising facilities that are used by very few people, but in the past it was impossible to confirm the exact details.

It now appears that the Regal Cinema was making a significant positive contribution to the Town's finances, but as it is going to be out of action for between 12 & 18 months for renovation, this means that the money to prop up their other services has to be found elsewhere.

To balance the budget, either expenditure has to be cut, or the amount paid by the Council Tax payers through the precept has to be increased. Or perhaps a mixture of the both.