The free voters voted on Friday with the traffic light coalition for the 2021 budget. They are pressing for the plans for the urgently needed infrastructure investments to be implemented quickly.
Benno Nuding, parliamentary group leader of the FWG Free Voting Community Bergisch Gladbach: We didn’t make it easy for ourselves to agree to a budget that would raise the city’s total debt by 100 million euros. However, we note that these are mostly loans for urgently needed investments in infrastructure, which in the end led us to say yes.
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We expect that the investment plans will now be quickly followed by action, especially in schools, digitization and in the transport sector.
That’s the page. The other side is the increase in cash loans (loans for ongoing administrative tasks) by a whopping 27 million euros. The mayor himself calls this bad debt, and it does.
The city, six years ago with around 1,000 employees, now employs over 1,300. This year alone, the number of jobs has increased by 70. Even if there is a need for us in some areas, there must be reviews in the future as to how personnel can be better deployed through digitization. In short: savings must be made, urgently.
The council saw it that way in the last electoral term, but did not tackle it before the local elections. We want that immediately – and the corona pandemic cannot be an excuse – all budget items are examined according to their efficiency and necessity. This is urgently necessary, because the corona-related tax losses will only become apparent in the course of this year and next.
Subsidies from the federal government to compensate for the reduced trade tax income are not expected, not for 2021 and certainly not for the time afterwards. If no austerity measures are taken in the consumer sector, all that remains is to turn the property tax rate.
That, in turn, is a dangerous game, because NRW has still not committed itself to a reform model for property tax. After all, the Federal Minister of Finance has declared that it should be cost-neutral overall. However, experts suspect that living in metropolitan areas will become even more expensive.
We also criticize the poorly transparent financial situation of the municipal investment companies for the citizens, which in turn are determined by other companies whose cost structures are not sufficiently clear. The calculations made to citizens, for example for garbage charges, remain incomprehensible.
With its approval of the budget, the FWG Group expects the announced austerity measures and reviews of budget products to be initiated quickly. Leaving the budget security concept must not lead to indiscipline, as if there was no tomorrow.
With the creation of a new, third councilor, the traffic light coalition did not behave in an exemplary manner at the beginning of the electoral term. And urban construction projects are also regularly marked by cost overruns. Strict cost management, for example when planning the town hall, is urgently required.
The entire budget speech by Benno Nuding, chairman of the FWG parliamentary group, is here retrievable.
