Mayor emphasizes: New sources of income needed - otherwise there would be no money for children and seniors

Created: 09/12/2022, 18:33

By: Bert Brosch

Hybrid event: Around 180 residents of Haar followed the citizens' meeting, either on site or via the Internet.

© Bert Brosch

At the citizens' meeting, the head of the town hall, Andreas Bukowski, once again emphasized how important new sources of income are for the municipality.

Otherwise, investments for children and seniors are on the brink.

Haar – The municipality of Haar has many plans, but no money.

This is how the two-hour lecture by City Hall Chief Andreas Bukowski (CSU) at the citizens' meeting can be summarized, which 100 Haarer followed in the citizens' hall and another 77 via live stream from home.

Business taxpayers are needed.

Before Bukowski started, District Administrator Christoph Göbel (CSU) referred to the need for the district levy that all municipalities have to pay to the district: The district accommodates over 7,000 refugees, 3,000 of them Ukrainians.

"That's far more than in the refugee year 2015 - and every day there are 100 new ones who have to be distributed and taken care of," said Göbel.

The district spends enormous sums on public transport, this year over 50 million euros, in 2023 over 70 million, as well as for secondary schools, this year alone 126 million.

Above all, he pays a lot of money for social security, this year almost 500 million euros.

Göbel: "That's why we need a healthy economy in the district and also the district levy."

"If we don't succeed..."

Bukowski quickly spoke of this, as it will be 26 million euros in Haar next year, in 2021 it was only 15 million euros.

The amount is based on the trade tax revenue from two years ago, and it was 43 million euros in Haar in 2021 and even 48 million this year due to high back payments.

But things are looking very bad for the coming years, the municipality is only calculating with 11 million euros trade tax for 2023, only the income tax will increase from 15.9 to 16.8 million euros.

"After MSD left, we no longer had large trade taxpayers, 75 percent of the companies pay nothing at all, very few more than 50,000 euros," reported Bukowski.

In view of the many projects, the community urgently needs to identify commercial areas and, above all, guide new trade tax payers to Haar.

In addition to the district levy of 26 million euros, the community wants to spend around 13 million euros on investments in 2023: 3.2 million euros for schools, 3.1 million for the renovation of the community center, 1.5 million for sports and pools, 1.3 million for the transport infrastructure and 1.1 million as the first subtotal for the new construction of the youth center "Dino".

The municipality is also planning to convert the sports grounds on Vockestraße into “a sports island for everyone”, according to Bukowski, the Ernst Mach high school and the old Jagdfeld school will also be converted, and the restaurant zur Post/Bürgerhaaus will be renovated.

In addition, hair grows a lot, now there are over 24,000 inhabitants, by 2030 it will be 28,000.

"We need more staff in the offices and for the care of children and seniors.

We have a new cultural office and will set up a new sports office.

Therefore, personnel costs rose to 17.3 million.

In order for the municipality to be able to afford this, it uses the savings account: the reserves fall from 77.8 to 47.8 million and will only amount to 3.1 million in 2026.

There was still reason to be happy: By chance, according to Bukowski, it was discovered that the community would be 950 years old next year.

This should be celebrated with a big party.

The citizens were interested

Jochen Hopf missed an item for renewable energy projects in the 2023 budget.

"The conversion in the indoor swimming pools from gas to heat pumps would save enormous costs." Mayor Andreas Bukowski said that the budget was very tightly knit, for financial and personnel reasons one could not realize everything that was desirable.

Georg Obermeier is chairman of the seniors' club and an enthusiastic water gymnast.

“Since the municipality lowered the water temperature from 28 to 26 degrees, we are only five seniors between 70 and 90 years old.” There used to be 15 to 20 people.

"Please make the water warmer again for the hour." Bukowski had an idea, albeit not meant seriously: "If everyone pees in, it will be warmer - but seriously: We save 25 percent of energy by lowering it.

Unfortunately, that will remain the case for now.”

In the meantime, the elevated bike path over the B 304 is just an idea, said Bukowski when asked about it on the Internet.

“But a cycle path like this is to be built in Munich, as well as in Basel and Stuttgart.

So the idea can't be that wrong.”