While the operating budgets of small towns generally withstood the coronavirus crisis in 2020, their investment spending fell sharply, by nearly 18%.
And this drop has even come close to 20% for very small towns with less than 5,000 inhabitants, indicate La Banque Postale and the Association des Petites Towns de France (APVF) in their seventh edition of "Financial eye on small towns"
,
published Wednesday.
This drop contrasts sharply with the increase in investment recorded in 2019.
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In the details of this study, which scrutinizes the 2020 budgets of the 4,088 municipalities with 2,500 to 25,000 inhabitants, their investment expenditure amounted to 7.9 billion euros.
This represents an average of 301 euros per inhabitant.
But the disparities are significant: for a quarter of small towns, this expenditure was greater than 377 euros per inhabitant, while conversely another quarter of the municipalities studied spent less than 153 euros per inhabitant.
The outlook is however positive thanks to the economic recovery and the deployment of the 100 billion stimulus plan over three years (2020 to 2022).
“Investments are expected to increase from 2021, with small towns participating like other communities in the recovery plan.
To accompany them, they benefit from various financial supports ”,
explain the authors of the study.
And to warn that this trend cannot be sustained over time without
"increased budgetary visibility"
following, in particular, the abolition of the housing tax.
The APVF calls more broadly for a
“new pact of trust between the State and local authorities”.