High school rent: the Provinces waste 55 million a year

ROME – The Italian provinces, never buried despite Matteo Renzi’s attempts as prime minister, every year throw away 55 million public funds to pay the rent of schools that are often unsafe and almost always unsuitable. The Teachers’ Guild, a representative union, reconstructs this Italian shame.

Naples, Frosinone and Catanzaro in the lead

With a dossier aimed at secondary schools, and largely incomplete due to the dataless archives of most of the provincial school offices, Gilda certifies how Campania has a commitment for school rents amounting to 11.064 million euros per year, a figure which represents a fifth of the entire national expenditure. The Province of Naples alone spends 8 million and 902 thousand euros. Following, in terms of the regions involved, Lazio, with an annual cost of 8 million and 789 thousand euros. The Province of Rome accounts for 3 million and 311 thousand euros in rentals of properties for education. In the same territory, however, the expenditure of Frosinone is impressive, a province which with only 465,000 inhabitants pays 4 million and 376 thousand euros to private individuals, the second figure in the country after that of Naples.

Puglia pays 7 million and 479,000 euros in rent. Sicily slightly less: 7 million and 226 thousand euros. In the region, Catania alone spends 2 million 279 thousand. Calabria has schools rented for 3,541,815.24 euros, a figure that represents the costs of Catanzaro alone, the third highest in Italy. The other four Calabrian provinces cannot offer reports. In general, the South of the country accounts for 57.9 percent of the total in public school rents.

Dear Milan and Genoa, virtuous Turin

Lombardy is the fifth region for real estate rental costs: 6 million and 300 thousand euros per year. Two million and 319 thousand will swallow up Milan and its hinterland. Genoa spends a good 2.4 million euros, while the other three Ligurian provinces, however, did not receive this item. Veneto is very virtuous, with an annual cost of 5,200 euros, but in truth this is the only expenditure of the Province of Belluno given that there is no trace of the budgets of the other six administrations. Turin is the most virtuous in its region, and among the most efficient provinces ever, with only 19,000 euros gross passed on to private owners every year. The total national expenditure, ascertained so far, is 54 million 565 thousand euros. A drain, anyway.

Data for Trentino Alto Adige, Valle d’Aosta and Basilicata are not available or obsolete. 58 of the country’s 107 provinces are missing, more than half. Among these, Florence and Pisa, Ferrara and Parma, Lodi, Cagliari, Bari, Reggio Calabria.

Without ownership there is no maintenance

Rino Di Meglio, secretary of the Guild, explains: “Many structures that depend on the municipalities and provinces resort to private rentals, which amount to exorbitant sums. In the province of Padua there are institutions that earn up to 600,000 euros a year. There are schools that for years, instead of being public, have been rented. In some cases it is observed that this mechanism, extended for several seasons, would have allowed the purchase of the school building itself”. In the absence of public ownership, it becomes particularly difficult to bring individual buildings up to standard. And this despite the investments envisaged in school buildings by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

“The system dates back to the 19th century”, Di Meglio continues, “we need a specific authority or at least the entrusting of the matter to a ministry or to the Regions”.