“Canceled the unjust debt, now the accounts add up”, but the Mayor’s calculator doesn’t work: Falcomatà’s latest joke

Reggio Calabria, the Mayor announces the cancellation of the debt but in reality it is all false. Government documents that mislead the Mayor

This morning the Mayor of Reggio Calabria, Giuseppe Falcomatà, announced with great fanfare that for the Municipality of Reggio it is “averted the risk of financial distress“. In a grand press conference held together with the councilor for the budget Irene Calabrò, Falcomatà thanked the government, the secretary of the Democratic Party Nicola Zingaretti, that “he fought like a lion for Reggio“, the minister Gualtieri and the entire executive headed by the premier Conte that with “a contribution of 200 million contained in the August Decree, will give new liquidity released for the municipal coffers that frees up energy without producing new debt that will allow us to do what we had so far had difficulty doing“.

In the press conference, Falcomatà suggests that they will come from the government 200 million euros in the coffers of Palazzo San Giorgio. An enormous amount, which would not be enough to clear all the previous debt, but which would really give the city a great shot in the arm. Too bad it’s all false. Or at least, there is no trace in any official document.

The Decree August, at the moment, it is only a draft. It has yet to be approved, and the process before publication in the Official Gazette is long and tortuous. We are therefore talking about little more than hot air. It is about ideas, hypothesis, drafts. Nothing concrete. But the worst thing is that even in the draft there is nothing comparable to what Falcomatà said to the city today..

In fact, in Article 50 of the draft of the August Decree, entitled “Support for institutions in structural deficit“(Which we publish in full at the end of the article), we read that”In implementation of the sentence of the Constitutional Court n. 115 of 2020, in order to promote the financial recovery of municipalities whose structural deficit is attributable to the socio-economic characteristics of the community and the territory and not to organizational pathologies, a fund has been established in the forecast of the Ministry of the Interior with a endowment of 100 million euros for the year 2020 and 50 million euros for each of the years 2021 and 2022, to be divided among the municipalities that have approved the financial rebalancing procedure referred to in article 243-bis of the legislative decree 18 August 2000, n. 267 and that at the date of entry into force of this decree they have the rebalancing plan approved and in the process of being implemented, although pending remodeling following rulings by the Court of Auditors and the Constitutional Court, and the latest index of social and material vulnerability (IVSM), calculated by ISTAT, above 100 and the related per capita tax capacity, determined by decree of the Ministry of Economy and Finance of 30 October 2018, is lower than 395“.

The Government, therefore, allocates 200 million euros, but it allocates them per ALL the municipalities of Italy that are in deficit, so this sum will come distributed among many public bodies in Italy and there isn’t no indication on the method of distribution. We therefore do not know how much the state will actually reach the coffers of Palazzo San Giorgio in the next three years.

Falcomatà in the press conference he also used the contradictory slogan “Canceled the unjust debt, the government frees the city from a boulder of the past“: The Mayor, therefore, considers”unfair“The debt of the Municipality of Reggio, but reiterates that it is a heavy negative inheritance linked to previous administrations (again, sigh!), despite prior to its disastrous 6 years of government, the city was administered for 2 years and 2 months by state commissioners who had launched a repayment plan for a debt figure of less than a quarter of what is certified today.

The contradictions of the Mayor are joined by those of 5 Star Movement who in the afternoon sent a “clarification” note with respect to the words of Falcomatà, announcing another press conference with great fanfare with the Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance Laura Castelli in town on Saturday 5 September, together with the mayoral candidate grillino Fabio Foti, to claim the grillina paternity to the norm that would save the city.

In short, in Reggio Calabria there are the two parties that govern Italy that are fighting to take credit for something that is not there.

The only real salvation of the city will be when, for the first time in 8 long years, citizens stop receiving bulletins of the highest municipal taxes in Italy, When the garbage will be collected from the sidewalks, When the water will reach the houses, When asphalt will return to the streets. When, in practice, Reggio will once again be one normal city. And there will be no need for fanfare and ultra-mega-cool press conferences – they’re only useful to to mount the anger of citizens, which understandably feel more and more teased. And they hope that this is only it the last mockery of a dramatic political season.

Art.50
Support for institutions in structural deficit

1. In implementation of the sentence of the Constitutional Court no. 115 of 2020, in order to promote the financial recovery of municipalities whose structural deficit is attributable to the socio-economic characteristics of the community and the territory and not to organizational pathologies, a fund has been established in the forecast of the Ministry of the Interior with a endowment of 100 million euros for the year 2020 and 50 million euros for each of the years 2021 and 2022, to be divided among the municipalities that have approved the financial rebalancing procedure referred to in article 243-bis of the legislative decree 18 August 2000, n. 267 and that at the date of entry into force of this decree they have the rebalancing plan approved and in the process of being implemented, although pending remodeling following rulings by the Court of Auditors and the Constitutional Court, and the latest index of social and material vulnerability (IVSM), calculated by ISTAT, above 100 and the related per capita tax capacity, determined by decree of the Ministry of Economy and Finance of October 30, 2018, is lower than 395.
2. By decree of the Ministry of the Interior, in agreement with the Ministry of Economy and Finance, after consulting the State-City and Local Autonomous Conference, to be issued within 30 days of the entry into force of this decree, the criteria and the methods for allocating the fund for the years 2020-2022 which take into account the per capita amount of the share to be covered, calculated taking into account the resident population as of January 1, 2020 and the weight of the share to be covered on current revenues; for the purposes of the division, entities with a population greater than 200,000 inhabitants are considered as entities of 200,000 inhabitants.
3. The endowment of the Revolving Fund referred to in article 243-ter of legislative decree no. 267, increased by 200 million euros for the year 2020. This amount is intended for the payment of current account expenses relating to personnel expenses, the production of services in economy and the acquisition of services and supplies, already committed. The disbursement in favor of the local authorities concerned of the aforementioned sums,
to be carried out during the year 2020, is subject to the sending of a specific certification on the use of resources to the Ministry of the Interior. Local authorities that have already benefited from it can also access the Revolving Fund, in the case of new supervening needs.
4. The resources referred to in paragraph 3 may not be used in the manner provided for by article 43 of decree-law no. 133 of 2014, converted with amendments by law 11 November 2014, n. 164, and are accounted for in accordance with the procedures set out in paragraph 3.20-bis of the principle applied to financial accounting as per attachment 4/2 to legislative decree no. 118. The portion of the administration result set aside in the liquidity advance fund is also applied to the estimated budget by the entities with an administrative deficit.
5. Coverage of the charges referred to in paragraph 1 is provided pursuant to article XXX. To cover the charges referred to in the first period of paragraph 3, the resources referred to in article 115, paragraph 1, of the law decree n. 34, converted with amendments by law 17 July 2020, n. 77, through the transfer of the state budget and reallocation to the budget of the Ministry of the Interior.
6. In paragraph 3 of article 194 of the legislative decree 18 August 2000, n. 267, at the end of the first period the words “are inserted, and, in the presence of installment plans with different duration than those indicated in the previous paragraph 2, can guarantee the financial coverage of the annual installments provided for in the agreements with creditors in each year of corresponding financial statements, in terms of competence and cash ”. In the recognition resolution, the hedges are promptly identified with reference to each year of the installment plan agreed with the creditors.
7. For the municipalities referred to in paragraph 1, the deadline for the resolution of the budget referred to in article 151, paragraph 1, of the legislative decree 18 August 2000, n. 267 is deferred to October 31, 2020.
8. In consideration of the extraordinary health emergency situation deriving from the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, for local authorities that have approved the multi-year financial rebalancing plan referred to in article 243-bis of the legislative decree 18 August 2000, n. 267, the terms arranged and assigned by resolution and / or preliminary notes by the Regional Control Sections of the Court of Auditors, are suspended until June 30, 2021, even if already effective.
9. For the entities referred to in paragraph 8, the executive procedures for any reason undertaken against them are also suspended until 30 June 2021. The suspension referred to in the previous period also applies to the measures adopted by the commissioners appointed following the experimentation of the procedures provided for by the code of the administrative process referred to in Legislative Decree 2 July 2010, n. 104, as well as to the other ad acta Commissioners appointed for any reason. Any executive procedures undertaken in violation of the first sentence of this paragraph do not determine constraints on the sums or limitations on the activity of the treasurer.
10. The provisions referred to in paragraphs 8 and 9 also apply to proceedings already initiated.

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