Municipality of Ferrara. The rising debts worry the opposition

Two hundred and twenty euros for an aperitif attended by 4 people including the mayor and deputy mayor reported as entertainment expense. Nothing illicit, but it is a fact that Dario Maresca (I Civici) points out during the discussion regarding the management report for the 2023 financial year in underlining that “for the first time I am also worried from an economic point of view as well as on the merits ”.

In fact, if in recent years a budget had been presented which saw a continuous decrease in debt compared to previous years, in 2023 this will grow again, going from 69 million in 2022 to 72 in 2023. Thus, at this end of the council period, Maresca finds himself, together with the PD councilors Elia Cusianto and Francesco Colaiacovo, to criticize the economic aspect of the report as well as the merit of the choices made by the administration.

“The councilor does not shine for transparency” says Maresca referring to Fornasini’s explanation in which he focuses on the positive result of competence, neglecting the other indicators which are instead negative. The budget balance and the overall balance, included in the management report approved by the city council, show negative values. “Clues that say that in 2023 we spent more than we collected.” Clearly, specifies the councilor of I Civici, “we didn’t go down the drain because we covered the loss with assets from previous years”.

This and the increase in debt would therefore be “a first step” towards what cannot yet be defined as “disaster” but which the opposition councilors are putting under the magnifying glass. Cusinato points out some expenses which in his opinion are excessive such as those for the outsourcing of legal tasks “when we had one of the best offices” as well as the use of funds linked to NextGen Eu “with ordinary criteria instead of extraordinary” when instead they should be used for future generations.

Colaiacovo goes so far as to talk about “wasted money that will fall on future generations” and underlines his concern, “in just one year there are many negative indicators” and the situation would be “serious” if it “were to repeat itself”. In short, we cannot yet speak of a failing budget but, as already reported on several occasions, the opposition is worried about the increase in spending. An increase, they point out, cannot be justified by the pandemic, inflation or the increase in energy costs which were worse in 2022 when the debt had actually decreased.

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