From lai November 04, 2020 – 8:00 p.m.
The budget of the city of Ludwigsburg is missing 32 million euros. Mayor Matthias Knecht would like to distribute the burden on as many shoulders as possible.
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The city of Ludwigsburg is also facing difficult times – because of the Corona crisis and an investment backlog.
Photo: stz / Pascal Thiel
Ludwigsburg – We will invest 215 million euros in the future of the city over the next few years. ”That is the good news that Mayor Matthias Knecht has linked to the draft budget for 2021. However, the joy about it is clouded by the fact that Ludwigsburg has to take out loans for 22.5 million euros, and that both the property and trade tax as well as the daycare fees are to be increased. “It will be hard and challenging years,” said the mayor on the occasion of the budget and investment program until 2024.
“We are basically presenting a second emergency budget this year,” said Knecht. After the corona crisis made it necessary to draw up a supplementary budget for 2020 in July, the outlook for the coming year now follows. And it may look better at first glance than assumed in the summer: City treasurer Harald Kistler has calculated that the city can expect 66.6 million euros in trade tax. But he also immediately restricted it: “That is an increase of 21.6 million compared to 2020, but still too little.” Also because Ludwigsburg has to pay high surcharges to the state and the district – the calculation basis for 2021 is the good year 2019 – and less financial equalization can be expected from the state: Kistler calculates 5.5 million euros less than 2020.
Targeted: strategic savings
This year, the city received a hefty financial injection from the federal government – 20.75 million euros in Corona aid – Kistler believes it is extremely unlikely that something similar could happen again in the coming year. Even if the pandemic is far from over. “As a city, we cannot do that alone,” says Mayor Knecht. “That is why we need a show of strength.” That is why the administration is planning to increase taxes and fees to distribute the burden on as many shoulders as possible: on the economy, homeowners and families.
In order to be able to justify this step, however, the city has already implemented cuts in the town hall staff in a first step, says the OB. At 34, only half as many positions will be filled in 2021 as in 2020. In addition, things such as green maintenance or repairs on playgrounds were already deleted this year. “Such measures are of course not enough,” says Knecht. “But that can be achieved in the short term.” In the medium term, the administration and the municipal council would have to agree on priorities: What can and what needs to be built? Where can the standards be lowered?
Bildungszentrum West has top priority
Ludwigsburg has financial problems not only as a result of the Corona crisis, said Knecht, “but also because we have a huge investment backlog”. Too many open construction sites and too many planned projects. That is why the municipal council and the town hall top had already agreed on the first important key data in a retreat at the beginning of October. The construction of the Education Center West is at the top of the list. Followed by the renovation of the central bus station and the development of residential areas. In January, the city councils are to hold a further meeting to discuss which projects will be overturned and which will be concentrated in the next few years.
In this way, you can also cut costs for city staff more specifically, says Knecht. The budget for the coming year alone provides 99.4 million euros for this. In the areas of education and mobility, savings should not be made. Digitization should also be pushed ahead. Sports and cultural associations and institutions are being given ten percent cuts, according to the OB. “But I think that the pain limit is reached.”
Concentration on core projects
priorities
The city councils have agreed on priority lists on several occasions in recent years. Usually these were discarded after a short time because the list was expanded to include new projects. OB Knecht would therefore like to push through a mandatory selection: “It will be painful for everyone, but we have no choice.”
Major project
The West Education Center has to be demolished and rebuilt. Not least because rooms there are polluted with pollutants. There is now a consensus on this: the construction project, which the city will require financially for at least ten years, has top priority for all city councils.
Downtown
The redesign of the Arsenalplatz is “an affair of the heart” for him, says the mayor. Nevertheless, the city must now find ways how this can be done more cheaply.
