FIFE will receive a core grant of £861 million from the Scottish Government for 2024-25 as well as an additional £9.5m to compensate for the national council tax freeze.
But whether the local government finance settlement is enough - ahead of the council's budget meeting next month in Glenrothes - depends on your political persuasion.
All four party leaders in Fife sat down to talk about the money in a Q&A.
Labour councillor David Ross said: “I think we’re all agreed that we can get through this year without making significant cuts to our current services, but just keeping things running is a challenge and there are a whole range of pressures that we’ve got."
He said the £9.5m Fife will receive was equivalent to a five per cent increase in council tax but argued that they're losing two per cent on the core grant.
Cllr Ross, the council leader, said: “Effectively we’re getting a three per cent council tax raise which is what we were estimating, but council tax is still outwith our control.
“I’d certainly have been proposing to go out and consult on another one per cent increase to see if people would put up with that so we could invest in our roads this year.”
Lib Dem group leader Jonny Tepp said the £861m general revenue package added up to a £3m cash cut compared to 2023-24.
However, SNP councillor David Alexander, leader of the opposition, pointed out: “If you add in the amount we’re getting for the council tax freeze, that adds another £9.5m which my colleagues forgot to mention."
Cllr Tepp disputed that the funding for the freeze was “more than we assumed” and argued “it’s a question of giving with one hand and taking away with the other”.
“We’re getting more on the council tax but less on a like for like basis on the overall grant,” he said.
On the council tax freeze itself, First Minister Humza Yousaf announced in October that it would remain at current levels into 2025.
Cllr Ross and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), among others, were very critical of that decision, saying it should have been one for councils to take.
Fife’s Conservative party leader Kathleen Leslie said it was “an overreach of national government” and added: “Fife Council was originally looking at a three per cent rise.
"What annoys me is that this decision was made at a national level without consultation and was against the spirit of the Verity House Agreement.
"These decisions should rest with local governments.”
Cllr Tepp called it a “regressive tax” and added: "Freezing it benefits the best off.”
However, Cllr Alexander said that increasing council tax, the Labour minority administration pushed through a five per cent rise last year, only adds “to the debt of an awful lot of people who can’t afford to pay it”.
“We have right now got to protect the people out there from any excess increases,” he said.
“If we can freeze council tax this year, we should grasp that. We cherish it.”
Cllr Ross argued that he would have preferred to put money into targeted support and hardship funds rather than “simply holding down the council tax.”
As well as the state of the roads, he said the council’s ageing vehicle fleet is increasingly breaking down, Fife wants to provide schoolkids with more one-to-one digital devices to improve their learning and there are flood prevention measures and school replacements to build.
"There are all these capital pressures on us and I’m struggling to see where we’re going to get the money to do even half of that,” Cllr Ross said.
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