Committee proposes £56k increase to Sark budget
A £56,000 budget increase has been proposed by Sark's Finances and Resources Committee ahead of the midsummer meeting of Chief Pleas on 6 July – and it has warned there could be tax increases to pay for it.
The expenditure request for 2017 totals £1.396m., an increase of £56,000 on this year's budget of £1.340m.
The largest single request is a £20,000 increase in the Procureur's budget from £150,000 to £170,000.
This has been attributed to the increase in case load currently being supported.
The amount needed to support the work of the Procureur has risen year-on-year and a tax increase has been suggested by the committee in order to balance these costs.
Any agreement of this proposal will be decided when the Chief Pleas meeting convenes next Wednesday and the committee noted the expectation that taxpayers would continue to progressively pay more could not be taken for granted.
Other significant requested budget increases are a £13,500 increase to the douzaine, which would enable it to bring its workforce back up to previous levels, and an extra £13,000 to Public Works to facilitate increased waste disposal costs.
An extra £5,000 of funding has been tabled for the finance budget for child protection work, as well as an increase of £3,000 to Tourism, and £2,500 to Education to provide additional special needs support.
The remaining requests are £1,000 budget increases to policing, office expenses, tax office costs and the Law Officers service level agreement.
Deductions of £4,000 to the insurance costs budget and of £3,000 to machinery depreciation work have also been reported.
As commenced last year, these requests are published ahead of the budget approval process, which takes place at Michaelmas Chief Pleas.
Finance and Resources said it would undertake further scrutiny of these requests in the meantime in order to avoid raising tax levels any more than is necessary.
