In the future, municipalities and districts are to be given more co-determination rights when it comes to road construction – and more responsibility for which projects are implemented. The hope: to realize cycle paths and roads more quickly.
Dresden (dpa / sn) – Saxony wants to reorganize funding for the construction of municipal roads and cycle paths. “In the future, the districts will decide in coordination with the municipalities according to the specific local conditions, which road can be built in which municipality and when,” said Finance Minister Hartmut Vorjohann (CDU) of the German Press Agency. That creates more flexibility.
“I hope that the stronger role played by local decision-makers will also speed up municipal road construction,” says Vorjohann. In the future, the projects can be managed and awarded directly by the districts and urban districts and no longer have to be applied for individually via the funding program via the Ministry of Economics, as was previously the case.
In the years 2023 and 2024, the municipalities will each have a flat rate of 115 million euros for the construction of roads alone. The Free State of Saxony supports the municipalities with 80 million euros annually from the state budget, 35 million euros are contributed from municipal funds via the so-called financial equalization. So far, according to the Ministry of Finance, the budget was 45 million euros per year.
“Compared to the previous procedure, the funds can be used much more quickly,” says Mischa Woitschek, Managing Director of the Saxon Association of Towns and Municipalities (SSG). However, this will only succeed if the prioritization and approval of the individual projects lies solely with the municipalities. The necessary legal bases still have to be created for this.
In recent years there have been repeated discussions in Saxony about funds and subsidies for municipal road construction: Saxony’s Ministry of Transport stopped the subsidies in 2020 for the time being. Too many applications had accumulated, and the available funds were significantly exceeded. Economics Minister Martin Dulig had already called for the funding to be realigned. Now there is a “positive result” for everyone involved, according to the SPD politician.
Agreement on the form of future funding was recently reached during the negotiations on municipal financial equalization. However, the regulation is “not in the towel yet,” stressed Dulig. The financial equalization still has to be decided by the state parliament together with the double budget 2023/24. With a view to the budget, Dulig demanded that the state roads also be given more money. “There we have received too few funds in recent years to properly expand and maintain the state roads.”
