Where's all the money going to come from?

I just got home this evening to an election leaflet boasting about our Council Tax being the lowest in West Yorkshire.

But 18 months ago I started noticing warning signs about the lack of money in Wakefield District. Social Services had a big cash injection after the damning Joint Review a few years ago, and that had run out (thankfully they did a good job of improving services). I don't follow the details but it seemed in late 2004 a big overspend was discovered and the Council has been clamping down on spending since then.

And since then we have started to embark on a merger of Education and Social Services (which is going to cost a lot of money) and the local PCTs are also going to merge (which is going to have some expensive knock-on effects).

In between, funding that had previously been promised to some local projects has disappeared; Council staff seem to be in a bit of an extended limbo, not knowing about what the final budgets are going to look like; there are rumours about staff cuts; and it goes on...

So I can understand a lot of this, even if I don't like it, but what I can't understand is why in this climate of multiple financial burdens the Council is boasting about keeping our Council Tax down. Personally I'd like to pay a bit more, even if it only kept services at their current level, and I'm not really convinced by this bit of electioneering...