Donegal County Council spent a total of €300m in 2020.
Moving to online council meetings and increasing their online services resulted in a saving of €420,000 by the local authority last year.
Donegal County Council’s Income Expenditure report showed that at the end of 2020, the council recorded a surplus of €851,197.
While the Council’s deficit reduced from €7.7m at the end of 2019 to €6.9m by the end of 2020 and down from a peak of €17.8m in 2013.
€50m more than what was included in the budget adopted by Councillors was spent last year.
€205m was spent by the council with an additional €95m spent on the Council’s capital account, bringing total expenditure to €300m.
The Council, on the other hand, received an income of €50m more than expected.
The large increase in spending was as a result of €24.3m spent on 4,392 business restart grants and €15m in rates waivers given to 4,159 businesses.
€7.8m was also spent in additional roads grants and €1.2m in additional housing grants.
The surplus in the Council’s budget was a result of €3.55m recouped from Central Government for exceptional expenditure and income loss arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.
€745,000 in additional income was received from non-principal private residences charges and €533,000 in Central Management charges from Irish Water.
Savings on pensions and retirement gratuities amounted to just over €1m and savings of €420,000 were made under travelling and subsistence allowances due to online meetings and reduced interactions with customers and the general public.
The budget for this area has been reduced for 2021.
Savings on insurance costs were made of over €400,000 and a net saving in wages and salaries of over €2.5m were made.
€1.3m has been added to the local authority’s Project Development Fund Reserve which included €500,000 co -financing from the increase in LPT.
