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question on funds/budgets for current spending

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  • 04-03-2009 11:21pm
    #1
    peasant
    Registered Users Posts: 17,819 ✭✭✭✭


    I know from other jurisdictions that funds/budgets for local authorities and other governement funded bodies are granted in a warped manner.

    Example: county council X apllies for funding for road upkeep. Funding of 1 million gets granted for this year, with another million promised for next year.

    Now if council X manages to keep up its roads this year for only half a million, it is then decided that they obviously don't need that much money after all and the budget for the next year gets cut to half a million. So, if they save money, they get penalised.

    This leads to wastage in the current year, just in order to be sure to be sure to get next years budget granted.

    Is this how it works in Ireland too?

    Because if that were the case, massive savings could be had by a simple reform of the budgeting system.


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    #2
    namloc1980
    Registered Users Posts: 18,285 ✭✭✭✭namloc1980


    Yes. Councils/Agencies etc. will almost always spend their entire budget because if they don't their budget for the following year will be cut. Even if this means spending on waste!


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    #3
    mikemac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 19,986 ✭✭✭✭mikemac


    Most definitly it happens here.
    Do you not see the crews out filling potholes and rebuilding footpaths non-stop at a certain time of the year? And doing little or nothing for the other 11 months.....

    I don't realy know how to reform it though


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    #4
    peasant
    Registered Users Posts: 17,819 ✭✭✭✭peasant


    Well ..this would probably need some tweaking, but ...these budgets don't usually come out of thin air but rather from experience. Re-occuring items have a cost and from experience you can guesstimate that so and so many of them will have to be done per year ...you have your budget.

    If, for whatever reason, real life doesn't co-incide with the guesstimate and you spend less, you should be entitled to return the surplus without further question and without it affecting next years budget.

    Do that for a few years (without wasting the surplus at the end of the year) and budgets should become more realistic (i.e less artificially inflated) and everybody wins.

    Meanwhile, give a gold star to the thrifty ones, stash the surplus in a kitty for the common good ...everybody happy.

    Or am I being naive here?


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    #5
    Dark_lord_ire
    Closed Accounts Posts: 124 ✭✭Dark_lord_ire


    same in the gardai. If funds are provided for any form of operation it has to be all used or next time its cut


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