The Town Hall of San Jose will have a budget of €26,818,124 in 2010, just €50,000 less than this year. The mayor, Josep Mari Ribas Agustinet, revealing the finer details in a press conference with the Councillor for the Economy, Paquita Ribas, said the fact the budget was so similar to this year was a huge success, and would be achieved without a substantial rise in municipal taxes, although there will be a slight increase. This, he explained, was due to legislation passed in 2006 by the former PP-administration which ensured the value of all properties recorded in the land registry, (catastral), would rise slightly each year over the next ten years. As the value of properties increase, the percentage taken on tax therefore rises slightly each year.
However, it is not all plain sailing as building tax collected by the Town Hall on new projects (ICIO) is set to fall by 43 per cent according to Ribas, and will mean around €580,000 less is collected next year. Additionally money collected from the municipal beach concessions is also set to fall by around 23 per cent.
The Town Hall’s highest expense will be in personnel (€7.58 million), a 10 per cent increase on last year, although this increase comes from the additional staff which have been taken on as part of a deal with the dole office (SOIB).
A total of €6.1 million will be invested in 2010, which is 22.78 per cent of the total budget. The main projects will include the second phase of burying overhead cables within San Jordi (€361,920), improvements to the Cala Tarida-Cala Moli road (€359,072), upgrades to the local swimming pool in San Jose (€650,720), and improvements to the water network (€200,000).
