Green parliamentary group expresses its opinion on the government's budget approval
On 17 March 2022, the Regierungspräsidium Darmstadt approved the budget of the Main-Kinzig district: "The Head of Government has some comments that clearly show that not everything went so smoothly in terms of budgeting," says Reiner Bousonville, financial policy spokesperson and leader of the Greens parliamentary group.
For this reason, the Group puts a question to the administration: “Among other things, the Bureau criticises the creation of 26 new posts, including 19 civil servants. Although this is understandable in terms of personnel policy, it permanently limits the financial room for manoeuvre. In this respect, a more restrictive personnel management seems indispensable. We would therefore like to know how the establishment plan is to be revised on the basis of criticism from the Presidency.”
This increase in additional costs also led to a sharp increase in the district levy: ‘Towns and municipalities are now paying for the county’s lavish staff planning, which in turn forces them to cut down on staff positions or offset additional costs through tax increases. In the end, therefore, the citizens pay in the circle.”
Already in the course of the budget debate, the Green parliamentary group had criticised the creation of new civil servant positions: “We now see our concerns confirmed and would like to know from the administration whether a reduction is being considered and, if not, what additional costs, including for pension provisions, will be incurred annually for the district when all posts are filled.”
The Governing Council also criticises the provisioning practice of recent years, which leads to a high proportion of tied liquidity. “It is therefore necessary to further reduce the provisions in order to generate available liquidity. It would also have been avoidable to increase the circular levy in this dimension.’
At the same time, the Head of Government also criticises the ‘highly praised investments’ by the Landrat and notes that the budget shows high deviations in the ‘plan-as-is’ comparison. This means that “many of the planned investments have not been and will not be implemented. This is where we expect realistic planning in the future", says Bousonville. "We would therefore like to know the impact of these erroneous planning approaches on the necessary investments, for example in the area of schools or infrastructure, such as broadband expansion, and which projects cannot be implemented again this year."
Even a necessary liquidity reserve, which is needed in times of lack of solvency of the district, the district has not yet built up: ‘This is negligent, at least in the area of financial security. We are therefore asking the administration when such a liquidity reserve will be built up," Bousonville said.
However, this was not yet the last point of criticism of the head of government: ‘Even the economic plans of the ‘Centre for Child, Youth and Family Assistance’ and ‘Breitband Main-Kinzig’ had not yet been adopted at the time of the budget decision and had not been submitted.’
The criticisms of the government should give reason to think: “The budget was highly praised by the Landrat and the Grand Coalition. The feedback from the higher authority now paints a completely different picture. Excessive staff planning, unrealizable investments and negligent financial reserves demonstrate the need for cleaner budget management and budgeting in the future. Here, in addition to the administration, the Grand Coalition is also in demand, as well as the municipalities, which must be more critical in opinions and discussions on the draft budget.”
As in previous years, the Greens will critically examine the district's budget and look at the actors in action: "We can only hope that these grievances will be addressed in the 2023 budget. After all, the Finance Department is running for another term as district administrator in 2023", concludes Bousonville.
Enquiries to:
Jakob Mähler
Group Managing Director
Alliance 90 / The Greens Main-Kinzig
06181/61596
0176/46763336
fraktion@gruene-mkk.de
English (UK)
comment article