A TEIGNBRIDGE councillor is proposing at next Friday's district authority budget meeting that the council tax increase for the coming financial year should be even lower than the executive's recommended 2.2 per cent.
Cllr Chris Clarance, the Independent councillor for Shaldon and Stokeinteignhead, is hoping to get backing for a 1.1 per cent increase or further measures which, he maintains, could drop it to 0.9 per cent.
While he commends the 2.2 per cent figure, which if approved will be one of the lowest increases in the country, he believes the council can do even better.
In a letter to chief executive Howard Davis, which is on the budget meeting agenda, businessman Cllr Clarance said he did not agree with the principle that Teignbridge Council should be funding two community wardens from the £63,000 extra revenue that the council tax on second homes will bring in.
He believed, like many council taxpayers, that while the existing wardens were doing a good job, the two extra posts should be filled and funded by the police, who had stronger powers of enforcement.
'The police are there to combat crime and disorder. I maintain this new phrase of "anti-social behaviour" is exactly a part of disorder and is a police matter,' he said.
Cllr Clarance added that it was a poor precedent to follow that the local authority takes over a part of the police role.
'Last year the police increased their precept by a massive 39.9 per cent and this year still want to increase by another 9.8 per cent.
'Surely these huge increases above inflation should be used to fund extra police, putting a police presence on the ground where it is needed and certainly not funded by us.
'As a local authority we should not be doing what is essentially a police job, and paying for it too,' he said.
He believed the £63,000 should instead go into the general revenue fund which, claimed Cllr Clarance, would bring the council tax down to 1.1 per cent.
Cllr Clarance added that with a 0.25 per cent rise in interest rates, by holding on to investment money for just 11 weeks would create enough interest to give the 0.2 per cent extra to bring the budget increase down to 0.9 per cent.