Mayo councillors reject GMA fund allocation changes
Councillors agree that each municipal district will continue to deal with GMA in their own way
Mayo councillors have rejected a call by senior management to make changes to the General Municipal Allocation (GMA) allocations and how it is allocated to community groups.
Members of Mayo County Council agreed at their monthly meeting to reject a proposal by council management to have a standard approach to General Municipal Allocation (GMA) allocations across the four municipal districts.
A number of recommendations were made to local councillors to consider which included a stipulation that groups which received GMA funding would be required to provide matching funding or 'at least a similar amount'. A minimum allocation of €500 by each member was also recommended.
READ: ALERT: HSE confirm they are investigating cases of Hepatitis A in Mayo
Councillors have discretion over where the GMA funding is spent which is approximately €70,000 per annum per councillor.
The councillors met at a workshop last Friday to consider the new recommendations but the meeting heard that there was 'no great consensus' to adopt them and they would continue on as they had previously.
“It is one of the few discretions we left in this council. We retain discretion in relation to the GMA because of the amount of people it benefits and the amount of communities its benefits," Claremorris-based Cllr Richard Finn told the meeting.
Chief Executive Kevin Kelly said he understood that councillors have discretion over the GMA allocation but asked councillors to look at consistency.
“There is a lot of money going out there through that process and we want to ensure it is coming from yourselves. I will be looking at consistency and will be asking you to consider a cut off date by which the applications will be done and dusted and a minimum amount. It is up to yourselves to set it but should be a reasonable amount given the overheads of making payments of applications,” he commented.
Fine Gael councillor Donna Sheridan agreed that there should be one standard form across the county but felt it should not be cumbersome.
“I want to agree on the form that we need one for the entire county, however, can we make sure it is not overly burdensome for the user filling it out. I was helping people with applications and some of them have become hugely overburdensome. We need to keep it as simple as we possibly can,” she said.
She was supported by Erris-based councillor Gerry Coyle who said small community groups do not have the time to be filling our complicated forms.
“There is so much rigmarole to it, so make it simple whatever you are doing,” he said.
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW