Difficult decisions have been forced upon the council as Central Government continues to massively cut the grant it provides to Wolverhampton.
Government grant reductions mean that the council has to find £98 million of savings by 2018/2019 on top of the £100 million it has already made over the past 5 years.
Council leaders, who have done everything possible to avoid cuts to essential services in recent years, today delivered a stark message that it was inevitable services will have to go in order to produce a balanced budget.
It is virtually certain that council tax will have to rise next April in what would be the first increase in 4 years. At the moment the authority is planning a 2% increase.
The council has today also announced details of 165 individual savings proposals that would see costs reduced in every department across the authority.
In revealing the proposals, Councillor Andrew Johnson, cabinet member for resources, said that the priorities for council spending would be economic regeneration, job creation and protecting essential services. These priorities are what residents have said they want the council to focus its resources on.
Councillor Johnson said: "This is a dark day for Wolverhampton. We have done everything we possibly can to protect essential services from cuts, but the Government continues to slash the funding it gives to Wolverhampton and we have no choice.
"We have already saved £100 million over the past 5 years with minimal impact on the services people value. However, we now predict having to find an additional £98 million and this is the worst financial position we have faced in our history.
"Places like Wolverhampton are being hit much harder by these Government cuts than wealthier areas of the country and there is just no way we can make these levels of savings without dramatically reducing our spending in terms of the services we provide.
"I'm extremely angry that because of Government cuts we are having to announce the potential closure of facilities in the city, job losses, increased charges and many other very regrettable but unavoidable savings.
"Worse still, in addition to what we have announced today, we still need to identify another £33.1 million of savings to meet our target of £98 million."
See the full savings proposals at Type=articles;Articleid=3451;Title=;.
The proposals likely to have the biggest impact include plans to reduce the opening hours of some of the city's libraries and introduce charging for the use of the internet in libraries.
The council has 15 branch libraries across the city and this proposal, which would save an estimated £1.7 million, is a way of avoiding the closure of any library. The council will look at ways of increasing opening hours when staff are not there - such as using self service machines and seeking volunteers to run the facilities.
Another proposal will see the council withdraw the £316,000 subsidy it pays annually to Central Baths. The leisure centre, in Bath Avenue, is not commercially viable and is the most poorly used of the city's leisure facilities.
Last year Central Baths had 126,634 visitors, compared to Aldersley Leisure Village which had 389,526 and the new Bert Williams Leisure Centre which had more than 400,000 visitors.
In addition, Central Baths will require extensive refurbishment over the coming years.
The council has approached other organisations to take on the running of Central Baths and will continue to do so, however the facility will have to close if no alternative operator can be found.
Another proposal will see the council increase the cost it charges to schools to provide schools meals. Costs would increase to schools by 2.5% in 2014/2015 and 5% over the following 3 years.
The council also intends to save £1.1 million by changing the way it provides youth services. Youth services that are open to all in the future will be centred around the new £6 million Youth Zone which is being created in the Westside area of the city centre.
Under the proposals, activities currently provided at the city's council run youth clubs would be transferred to the new youth zone. The voluntary and community sector will be encouraged to provide youth facilities at suitable venues in the city such as church halls and community hubs.
Meanwhile, the council would continue to provide targeted youth work, as it does now, which is focused on helping and supporting young people who are at risk, for instance of exclusion from school, by identifying activities which they can get involved in.
Another difficult decision will see the city's events programme reduced by £80,000 and funding for Christmas lights displays will be reduced by £25,000.
Voluntary sector grants currently will reduce by £1.6 million - but while significant, it is only a 13% decrease to the £12.5 million the council spends in this sector commissioning services.
It also proposed to stop the collection of garden waste over the winter months which would save £150,000. It is also intended to review the food waste collection service - only 35% of households are currently using the service and this figure has remained static since collections were introduced.
The council is being forced to review its highways maintenance programmes as well as grounds maintenance which could see changes to how frequently roads are repaired, grass verges are trimmed and how parks are maintained.
The authority has also announced today that it will look at more commercial ways to run Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Bantock House Museum and Bilston Craft Gallery to generate additional income.
Other proposals include reducing councillors' expenses, reducing how much the council spends on marketing/communications, reducing the levels of management within the council and restructuring various departments.
The authority has already announced that 1,000 jobs will need to go over the next 5 years - this is on top of the 889 posts that have gone over the past 5 years.
A consultation period on the proposals will begin next month (November) where the council will seek feedback from stakeholders including the public, voluntary sector, the Local Strategic Partnership, trade unions, businesses and schools.
The outcome of the consultation will be taken into account in the Cabinet's final budget recommendations to Full Council in March 2014.
- released: Wednesday 16 October, 2013