Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The closed car park

At the council meeting yesterday, the mayor, Raúl Valerio Medina, announced that the town council are going to carry out an audit to investigate the overrun of costs in building the car park La Paz.

The original budget was for 1.4 million Euros. By the time the car park was finished, the constructor put the cost at 2.3 million; an overrun of 850,000 Euros which the council have refused to pay. That is why the car park is closed and has been, apart from the week of the fiesta, since it was completed.

Obviously estimates are just that and there is leeway for the council to approve an overspend but not by such  a large amount. Municipal technicians claim that the extra cost should have been in the order of 350,000 Euros. Legal proceedings will be conducted to determine the real value and so avoid an excessive strain on the town’s budget.

The other main item of interest at the meeting was the budget for the town. Following all the allegations about budgets in the past, the council has been extra careful in presenting the figures for 2009 which is why they have been delayed.

As far as increases in council tax are concerned, the mayor explained that the extra 200,000 Euros was due to revisions in cadastral values taking account of those houses which had not been previously valued. In fact, as the mayor pointed out, the multiplier, that is applied to obtain the amount of tax to be paid, has been maintained at 0.65 which he claims is one of the lowest in the area.

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