Schwerin (dpa/mv) – The opposition sees the state’s promised support for the municipalities as insufficient. The promised 185 million euros in additional funding would face a forecast loss of purchasing power in the municipalities of 217 million euros in 2023, said CDU parliamentary group leader Franz-Robert Liskow on Tuesday in Schwerin. He reckoned with an inflation rate of 7 percent in the coming year. “So there can be no question of an actual improvement in municipal financial resources,” it said after the municipal summit on Monday evening.
Among other things, the state wants to increase the infrastructure allowance for investments in roads and schools in the coming year from 100 to 150 million euros. An additional ten million euros are to be made available over the next three years for special needs allocations to cash-strapped municipalities so that they too can invest.
There should be an extra five million euros for civil protection. The reimbursement of the higher costs in the housing benefit offices as a result of the planned major housing benefit reform by the federal government should be brought forward in order to relieve the cities and communities. There should be ten million euros to pay higher energy costs from schools of all sponsorship, five million euros for the daycare centers.
But the municipalities should also bring in 50 million euros from their additional tax revenue. Liskow said: “Of the total of 185 million euros that Red-Red is peddling, only 47 million euros are state funds, i.e. additional money.” The rest is either due to the municipalities anyway as a share of the state’s additional income or is their own money.
The AfD parliamentary group also sees the aid as insufficient, and local political spokesman Jens-Holger Schneider is critical of the financial dependency. “At best, the districts and municipalities can “drive on sight”. However, it is to be feared that the massive need for investment will make them even more dependent on the state.” He accused the state government of having caused the crisis itself through wrong decisions in the energy supply.
For the additional expenditure of the state, a supplementary budget with an energy fund of a good 1.1 billion euros is to be launched in the state parliament on Thursday. Of this, 600 million euros are to come from the federal aid packages and the rest from the state.