The Casting Vote…
June 14th, 2006This is a post about a local issue regarding the festival. For details on the actual festival iteslf, please see this piece
When I was elected Mayor of Letterkenny, in June of last year, I made the decision that I would try to avoid having to use my casting vote (as Chairman of the Council, you get a second vote to break a tied vote) wherever possible. I believe, and continue to believe, that there is almost always a solution that can be negotiated when two sides are split down the middle. Councillors are trying to be reasonable, so chances are when it’s a dead heat there is much common ground between the two sides of the proposition. Either that, or they are completely opposed.
I lasted eleven months before having to cast a deciding vote like that.
At Monday night’s meeting of the Council, I had to use my casting vote against Cllr Dessie Larkin’s proposal that we allocate E10,000 to the Letterkenny Comedy Festival, and in support of Cllr Ciaran Brogan’s proposal that we consider funding the Festival from next year on, during our normal budgetting process. This has proven quite controversial.
The Festival is due to take place at the end of July, and has been in planning since the middle of last year. It is being organised through An Grianan Theatre, with support from Aiken Promotions, and sponsored by Diageo. It looks set to be a great event, and one which I am really looking forward to. I have discussed it here before.
So why did I vote against it?
It was a very tough decision to make. I attempted to avoid it, by suggesting an alternative outcome, but the Councillors involved would not accept it.
Letterkenny Town Council’s budget is set every year in December. It’s a very difficult process, one which I played a very active part in this year, through my role as Mayor. As part of that process, we set aside all the money we plan to distribute to community groups and other organisations, for events and festivals, such as the Fleadh Cheoil, Letterkenny Reunion and events at An Grianan Theatre. We also set out how we are going to pay for these grants, and to run the town.
It’s a delicate balancing process. We raise 50% of our budget through Commercial Rates, a tax on business property in the Town. The more we hope to pay out, the more we have to take in. As Councillors, we have a responsibility to get the best value for all the money we take in. We also have a responsibity to budget correctly for the current needs of the town, and for future development.
As I have said, many groups are funded through this budget process. This is where we make the financial decisions for the year. We are then bound by these decisions throughout the year; we can’t make any extra money come in, so we can’t send any more out.
As I said above, discussions regarding the Comedy Festival were taking place at the end of last year. For money to be made available for the Festival, it needed to be considered at that time. Other events, like the Fleadh Cheoil, PanCeltic Festival and Letterkenny Reunion, applied for funding through the budget, and were succesful. An Grianan Theatre itself saw it’s direct funding from the Town Council rise by E20,000 to E95,000, as well as a continued payment of E50,000 towards their loan charges. That’s E145,000 in direct funding from the Town Council alone.
We were being asked, essentialy, to ignore our budget, and make a E10,000 hole for this event with no means to fill it. This would have set a dangerous precedent, and brought our entire budget process into disrepute. What point is there in working hard to set aside a year’s plan of funding, if Councillors can introduce motions like this at will, with no regard to where the money would come from?
We have not rejected the idea of supporting this festival. The decision that was taken, the right decision in my mind, was that we consider funding the festival as part of next year’s budget. This is the only legitimate way we could have done it, while being true to our responsibilities. It would have been very easy to come in and back the proposal, but it would not have been in the best interests of the Council, or the town we represent.
I have spoken to the main sponsors of the Festival, and will meet them later today. They believe that the Festival will be a success, and will have a good future in Letterkenny. I know that Letterkenny Town Council will be able to work with them on this, like we work with so many other groups and events.
This is a post about a local issue regarding the festival. For details on the actual festival iteslf, please see this piece
Update: At a special meeting of the Council on Tuesday June 20th, I put forward a proposal to bring this controversy to a close. Having gone through every line of the budget, I worked with the Town Clerk to identify the funding without taking away from important aspects of the Council’s work. I received unanimous support from the Council, and we have now been able to allocate E10,000 to support the festival, while staying within our responsibilities as Councillors.