There can be pressure for large council tax increases if central government funding does not keep up with the local government spending increases needed to maintain and improve local services. This has caused the significant rises in council tax nationally in recent years. When a local council knows these sums, it can calculate the amount it needs to collect from council tax. At East Sussex County Council, our process for setting our budget typically starts 14 months beforehand, and budgets are considered over a 4-year planning cycle.
Because much information is unknown at the time, these figures provide only an indication of how much future funding will become available. Senior staff consider spending pressures in the previous Spring. Cabinet then sets out initial guidelines over the Summer, and discussions continue as our Government grant figures are received before Christmas. Plans are refined in the new year, and the full budget is finally approved in February, for formal publication in April.
All the major budget decisions are discussed and approved by our Cabinet. Part of the reason for this is that the Conservative Party argues this will make councils more efficient because profligate councils will be punished by the electorate. But it doesn't really work like that, does it?
Councils are still inefficient, employing too many civil servants with gold-plated pensions, and wasting money on wrongheaded projects, yet they now need even more of our money. That frequently means looking to other revenue streams such as ramping up parking fees. But as research by ABC Finance showed, at least a quarter of shoppers are deterred from coming into town centres because of expensive parking charges.
Our high streets are suffering because greedy councils are making it harder for traders to attract customers. And yet those same councils are looking at risking our money by buying up retail property in order to make them more attractive by adding a few plant pots.
Rather, cut council rents, rates and parking fees and the high street will stand a better chance of survival.
The cost of social care should also be put back on to central government taxation because the fundamental demands of an ageing population affects us all. Instead let councils concentrate on giving us better value for money providing basic local services. The responsibilities for collection and disposal vary widely but in general district councils usually collect waste and country council's usually dispose of it, with unitary authorities usually doing both.
This is why the figures are broken down into costs for collection and disposal excluding capital expenditure and re-charges by waste authorities when the service has been merged with other local authorities. One figure worth pointing out is the amount spent on waste minimisation. Despite collection and disposal of waste being a major part of the council-tax burden, less than 0. In , about one-third of state and local spending went toward combined elementary and secondary education 21 percent and higher education 9 percent.
See our higher education backgrounder for more information. Another 22 percent of expenditures went toward public welfare in Public welfare includes spending on means-tested programs, such as Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Supplemental Security Income.
Medicaid constitutes a large, and growing, portion of state spending. However, Census does not separate Medicaid spending into its own category. Instead, most Medicaid spending is accounted for under the public welfare category with some spending counted as hospital expenditures.
Both of these totals include the federal share of Medicaid spending. Highway and road spending was 6 percent of state and local direct general expenditures in Looking at criminal justice expenditures individually, police spending was 4 percent of state and local direct general expenditures, corrections spending was 3 percent, and court spending was 2 percent.
Housing and community development expenditures accounted for another 2 percent of state and local direct general expenditures. Most of the remaining 22 percent of state and local direct expenditures in went toward these programs:. States and local governments provide different mixes of services, which are reflected in their direct general expenditures.
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