Tax hike includes pay rises

Maidstone’s Council Tax payers are likely to face a 3% hike in their bills this April.

The final decision was scheduled to be taken at a full council meeting yesterday (Wednesday).

Members of the council’s policy and resources committee agreed by a majority vote of eight votes to four, with three abstentions, to accept their officers’ recommendation to increase the tax by the maximum amount permitted by law without resorting to a referendum.

The increase will cost the “average” band D Council Taxpayer an extra £7.29 a year - but that is just on the borough’s contribution to the council tax. The elements demanded by the police, the fire authority and the parish councils are also likely to rise.

The borough will receive an extra £427,000 in revenue from the tax increase, which the council’s director of finance Mark Green said should allow the council to have £6.2m of reserves at the end of the next year. He described that level as “adequate, but not excessive.”

But Cllr Louise Brice raised issue with the budget allowing for a 2% pay rise for all council staff, saying the wider community wasn’t expecting the same.

Kent County Council has backed a budget which will see its proportion of bills rise by just under 5% - one of the biggest increases in recent years. The figure includes a levy for adult social care.