Kirklees Council bosses saved more than £4.5m last year.
And senior councillors will now be asked how best to use the extra cash.
The £4.5m savings – totalling 1.4% of the council’s revenue budget of more than £321m – have been generated from areas such as strike payment savings, an underspend on fuel, welfare fund savings as well as managing staffing vacancies.
Kirklees officers favour using the extra cash to save on future borrowing costs and topping up the council’s reserves, but it will be up to councillors to decide what to do with the £4.5m.
Clr Graham Turner, Cabinet Member for Resources, said the savings should be used where they can give the best benefit.
“It is right that the council – not having spent all its money – should reallocate that saving for future years,” he said.
“In bringing the report to Cabinet we can explain fully to members of the public that this money can bring about a reduction in planned borrowing, resulting in further savings of £295,000 a year over a seven year period from this year onwards.
“It is not cash we could have used to prevent closures to public toilets, as an example, but it does allow us to borrow slightly less to deliver our capital plan with the future interest savings that will lead to every year.”
Cabinet initially, and Full Council in July, will consider how to allocate the balance.
Clr Turner added: “It is a credit to our hard working staff that they have taken on board our current financial problems, due to cuts from the government in our budget, and have worked extremely hard to save money where possible over the last year and it makes prudent financial sense to use this money to save on our borrowing costs in future years.”
Cabinet will meet to discuss the proposals on Tuesday June 2.
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