Electricity at least a million euros more expensive
Created: 11/17/2022, 5:23 p.m
High-voltage lines (symbolic image) © IMAGO/Arnulf Hettrich
The wealthy Puchheim will also have to tighten their belts in the coming years.
Puchheim – At the first budget consultation in the city council's finance committee, treasurer Harald Heitmeir and mayor Norbert Seidl painted a rather bleak picture of the future.
In 2023, people will probably make ends meet with a lot of hard work.
"But we don't know how we're going to manage that in the coming years," said the chief financial officer at the meeting.
Corona dent hardly noticeable
According to the first budget draft, it doesn't look that bad, at least on the revenue side.
There is hardly any sign of a corona dent.
The trade tax is to grow moderately (18.7 million euros), the income tax contribution even significantly (to 18 million euros).
On the other hand, there are far higher energy costs - an estimated plus of one million euros for electricity alone - and even without new hires significantly higher personnel expenses due to the probable wage settlements.
As of now, ongoing operations will result in a deficit of seven million euros.
However, a decent round of cuts is to be made before the final version of the budget.
Investments are already being slowed down.
For the city center, funds are again only available for further planning.
This is expected to provide a “reasonable price tag” for the possible total costs that would eventually be incurred for the future center.
Nevertheless, the projects that have been started must be completed.
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Around 14 million euros are earmarked for construction work or final payments.
This includes the completion of the indoor swimming pool (a good five million euros), which – if you can afford to run it – should open again at the start of the coming school year.
The second big chunk is the expansion of the elementary school in Puchheim-Ort (3.2 million euros).
A further stage in the fire protection retrofitting at the middle school and the crossing of Alpenstraße and Lagerstraße also require seven-digit amounts.
borrowing
Borrowing is probably not mandatory for the coming year, but will probably be unavoidable after that.
Because the treasurer is not very confident that the recovery in municipal finances expected by the tax estimators for the years 2024 and 2025 will actually occur.
“This time I don't have the imagination how it should get better,” says Heitmeir.
From Puchheim's point of view, there are only a few options: Do not start anything new to build and do not take on any further tasks that would require additional personnel.
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At least there was a willingness to save in the Finance Committee, although optimism still seems to prevail.
After all, things have always turned out better than forecast.
However, the parliamentary groups only submitted a few applications – including floodlights for the skate track, wedding bench at the duck pond or energy talks as a series of urban events.
The proposals were reduced in their cost approach, postponed until a later overall concept, or discarded immediately.
You can find more current news from the district of Fürstenfeldbruck at Merkur.de/Fürstenfeldbruck.