“Unpleasant decisions” will have to be made in saving almost £17 million to Dundee City Council’s budget over the next two years.
Due to increasing costs, the continuing recession and a lack of extra income from Scottish Government grants, the council has identified it must cut £8.4 million from its budgets in both 2014/15 and 2015/16.
Councillors last night noted a report by director of corporate services Marjory Stewart which said: “The council continues to experience cost pressures due to demographic changes, additional demand for services and general/specific areas of price inflation.
“In addition, locally-determined sources of chargeable income continue to be compromised by the ongoing economic situation.”
The funding shortage could see another raft of voluntary retirement and redundancies, the SNP administration has admitted.
Council leader Ken Guild said some “unpleasant decisions” are on the way but insists the administration will achieve its targets.
Labour councillors have called for proposed cuts to be made public as soon as possible.
Mr Guild said individual departments would be asked to identify savings, while a survey is taking place of council buildings to ensure their use is maximised.
“As usual, we will get the proposals into the public domain as soon as we can,” said Mr Guild.
“Some of the decisions we made in previous years roll over into the following years. For example, a lot of the voluntary redundancy savings made three years ago continued into following years.
“There will be some unpleasant decisions to make, there’s absolutely no doubt about that. Any savings we make are bound to impact on somebody.
“I think we will balance the books. We’ve done it every year. We are operating within what is one of the deepest recessions in living memory and we can’t spend money we don’t have.”
Labour group leader Kevin Keenan said: “The administration will be working with officers, putting together their budget and as an opposition group, we haven’t started process.
“But we are aware of the fact there are considerable savings to be made. I would like to see the administration issue their budget as early as possible for scrutiny.
“The public has the right to scrutinise what they’re bringing forward. There will be difficult things they need to do but I would imagine services and closures are what they’re looking at.”
Also, the housing committee approved talks with tenants on the proposed average rent rises of £1.49, £1.66 or £1.82 a week, before a decision is taken in January.
The last time the council approved an increase of less than 3% was in 2001. The report by housing director Elaine Zwirlein proposed talks on the three selections.
Housing convener John Alexander said significant advances have been made in bringing housing stock up to standard.