Do you support the Green Party proposal to increase Council Tax by 2.95% to raise enough to keep all the libraries open; double the council tax hardship fund for the poorest 30,000 households hit by the loss of council tax benefit; and put £2 million back into services for older, disabled and vulnerable adults?
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How does this balance? You say 2.95% will raise about £3.5m by adding roughly £180 per year to each household.
The costs would be £1m for losing the central government grant, £600k for the referendum itself. Leaving £1.9m.
Now these poorest 30,000 households have just been charged an extra £5.4m, what part of the remaining £1.9m is going to help them when you’ve just hit them with an extra bill of over double that. You’re making the situation for the poorest households worse.
That’s before I include what you’re spending on the libraries as you don’t quote the numbers.
This proposed budget is cruel!
To make the sums clear:
A 2.95% rise will raise £5.8m;
Take off £2m government one-off grant (the £225k referendum cost will be paid from our main savings);
Leaving £3.8m to invest in libraries along with services and support for the most vulnerable in Sheffield.
This will cost £25 across a whole year for most households in Sheffield(Band A).
The *most* the increase will cost for a household is £76 (Band H) across the whole year.
We realise that Council Tax is no lasting solution to the difficulty that local Government finds itself in, as Labour and then Conservatives have cut local services to the bone. However there needs to be a proper solution for Libraries and there are real concerns about the state of adult care services. We hope that people will support these aims through what is a modest increase.
Tax the rich. They made the crisis. The poor are in a desperate enough situation already.
This of course is Green Party policy Robert. Is it Labour Party policy? However as you well know Councillors can only manage the local budget and the only choices for them are to raise Council Tax or make cuts elsewhere. The Green Party have shown there are savings that could have been made to invest in renewable energy, producing jobs for Sheffielder’s and cheaper bills for Council tenants. We could have invested in safer streets in the city centre and saved the libraries for another year. Instead Labour have chosen to make deeply damaging cuts.
I agree with Robert. Greens believe in fair taxes and fair taxes mean those who have more should contribute more.
That’s why we opposed the Labour Party’s “tax the poor” approach: http://archive.sheffieldgreenparty.org.uk/2013/01/23/greens-oppose-labour-changes-to-council-tax-benefit-scheme/