The Tinajo City Council today approved the budget for the year 2005. To this end, an extraordinary plenary session was convened, during which the councilors were also informed of the final result of the audit of the General Account for the year 2002, approved by the Plenary of the Canary Islands Court of Auditors.
The budget was approved with the votes against of the Socialist Party, which expressed its disagreement with numerous items in the document.
The approved budget includes a significant increase in items corresponding to social expenses, with special emphasis on the areas of Culture, Education and Social Affairs.
In total, the municipality's resources for this year have increased by 399,000 euros, which represents an overall increase of seven percent compared to last year's budget.
Most of the investments that have suffered an increase will be financed through agreements. Likewise, during this year the Corporation will try to clean up the municipal accounts.
For this year, the Tinajo Government group expects a significant increase in tax and fee collection.
On the other hand, the salaries of the personnel paid by the municipality are not going to suffer any change, since these already exceed the limits established by the General Law of the General Budgets.
The Socialist Party voted against the budget. The spokesperson for the socialists pointed out to the councilors of the municipal government a multitude of inconsistencies with respect to the resources of last year. Thus, Marcos Hernández pointed out that, based on the 2004 budget, it can be observed in the income chapter that the collection items could be much more modest than stipulated in the document presented by Coalición Canaria (CC), a formation that holds the absolute majority in the municipality.
In this way, last year the City Council spent 197,000 euros on garbage collection, while the initial forecast was 180,000. Meanwhile, in terms of taxes for this service, the municipality was only able to collect 117,000 euros, resulting in a deficit of about 80,000 euros.
In the same way, the socialists criticized the increase of various items in the expense chapter. For example, it is expected that the Corporation will spend 30,000 euros more than last year on eventual Youth and Sports personnel. Likewise, a new item appears corresponding to the eventual personnel of Culture and Urbanism. These modifications with respect to 2004 were justified by the mayor with the fact that this year the budget is more detailed and broken down than in the previous year.
Of the same nature was the justification of Jesús Machín regarding the decrease of 20,000 euros in the item corresponding to Cultural Activities. In this sense, Machín explained that in 2004 this item included expenses for sports activities and that this year they have been distributed more equitably among the councilorships.
Another of the most conflicting items from the point of view of the opposition refers to subsidies for fishing, agriculture and livestock. This year this concept corresponds to 36,000 euros, while last year only a little more than 14,000 were distributed among the beneficiaries, while the budgeted amount was 18,000. But apparently this year a new agricultural association emerged in Tinajo, in addition to what the market that is being planned to be established in Mancha Blanca will take.
On the other hand, Tinajo approved in yesterday's extraordinary session the final result of the audit of the General Account for the year 2002, approved by the Plenary of the Canary Islands Court of Auditors. These did not present a budgetary imbalance, since the income was sufficient to cover the expenses.
However, the Court of Auditors observed that the Accounts did not take into account either future expenses or invoices of doubtful collection. On the other hand, personnel expenses in 2002 accounted for 39 percent of the total municipal resources.
Likewise, the Plenary approved the recognition of more than 324,000 euros of debt corresponding to past years, specifically between 1999 and 2004. The socialists abstained in the vote.
On the other hand, the creation of new positions within the staff of permanent labor personnel was unanimously approved, which comes to fulfill the agreement signed with the workers two years ago, by which the City Council committed to gradually regularize the situation of municipal employees. The modification of this year was agreed with the Works Council, understanding that the mayor of Tinajo thanked the workers in statements to this newspaper. "I congratulate the workers of the City Council for the sensitivity they have had," said the first mayor. "Surely next year we will take out a few more places, until we update the entire staff."
