ANOTHER cash row has erupted between York city leaders after council chief James Alexander claimed a “black hole” had emerged in the authority’s finances.

The Labour leader said he had discovered a £700,000 shortfall in the authority’s communities and neighbourhoods directorate, on top of £800,000 holes in housing and £500,000 in property services which were already known about.

He claimed the former Liberal Democrat administration and Tory councillors voted to achieve savings in February that were “clearly not achievable.”

He said a target of saving £700,000 in supplies and services looked likely to fall short by £200,000 and an “internal trading” target of £150,000 looked unlikely to make any savings this financial year. The Fleet Review should also yield a saving of £570,000 this financial year but looked likely to fall short by £366,000.

“I have asked the chief executive and relevant senior directors to put in place plans for dealing with this short-fall we have been left with,” he said.

But Lib Dem leader Carol Runciman hit back, claiming Coun Alexander was “obviously keen to get his excuses in early, but seems somewhat premature with his claims”, and suggesting he might be overplaying problems for political gain.

She said some of the reviews were still in their early stages and so would take time to deliver the savings.

“However, if James Alexander was so worried about these so called ‘black holes’, why did he not address the issues when proposing his recent budget amendment?,” she said.

Tory group leader Ian Gillies claimed Coun Alexander had “taken a snapshot of the council budget at specific moment in the budget cycle, pulled out some figures and manipulated those figures to make up a story”.

He said the budget set in February had been a challenging one but it was meant to be, and it had been signed off by the director of resources as manageable. “It all depends at what point in the budget cycle one evaluates these figures and one wonders why Coun Alexander feels the need to run to The Press on this now – is he already concerned about his own party’s ability to manage the council’s budget?” he said.