Saving money

The Socialist party planned to request a revision of the cadastral values of houses in Bigastro at last night's Council Meeting. The PP party were planning to oppose this. The PP estimate that a revision of cadastral values would bring about a 15% increase to our IBI (local council tax).

The last revaluation of cadastral values was in 2000. So, according to legislation, they would be due for revision in 2010. The socialist party obviously want to bring this forward by two years to increase income to the town's budget.

We have paid a higher rate this year because the percentage applied to calculate the tax has been increased. The increase last year was due to the change of designation of our houses from rural to urban.

At the meeting, the PP party were also planning to criticise the expenditure that the local council have made on the Città Slow project. They claim that it is the sort of project that the council might embark on when there is plenty of money in the budget but not when times are tight.

Finally, the spokesperson for the PP said that they were going to suggest reducing the council workforce by removing 40 unnecessary jobs thus saving 900,000€ from the budget each year.

I don't know the outcome of the meeting yet but I imagine that the majority vote of the socialist party would carry their proposals through.