PESCARA. After ten years, the Municipality is approaching the conclusion of the financial recovery process: with no more debts and with an administration deficit that has fallen year after year, it is among the most virtuous in Abruzzo for the average 28 days in supplier payments. Circumstances that push the mayor Carlo Masci to look to the future with optimism, imagining already at the end of the year a new impulse in maintenance and asphalt, thanks to the possibility of taking out mortgages, the not too remote hypothesis of lowering the IMU and TARI rates and even increasing the staff of the organization with new competitions.
“We will deliver to the new mayor a totally restored and virtuous municipality, as certified in the report of the Court of Auditors”, explained Masci yesterday morning, meeting together with the councilor for Finance and Budget Eugenio Seccia and to the sector manager Andrea Ruggeri to illustrate the contents of the recent communications received from the accounting judiciary, «we have reached the end of a long, difficult and complex journey. In the last five years we have had to manage a recovery plan linked to the predisposition declared ten years ago. We took over a municipality where every year we had to repay more than 4 million to the state to recover from previous debts. Today we are much lighter and are able to acquire full financial autonomy.”
At the end of the last year in the predisposition, from 1 January 2025 the Municipality will exit the financial rebalancing procedure. The Court of Auditors, in resolution 119 of 2024, highlighted the “full achievement of the objectives relating to the financial year in question”. “The information relating to the 2023 financial year appears to demonstrate the effectiveness of the corrective measures undertaken by the entity,” reads the judges’ analysis. As Seccia highlighted, going into the details of the rebalancing, the cash fund «which represents the true thermometer of the state of health of local authorities» almost doubled from 2016 to 2023, going from 11,917,882.94 euros to 21,946,665, 80 euros. Numbers that photograph “the improvement in liquidity”. Furthermore, compared to a deficit of over 63 million recorded in 2015, the 2023 share is almost 27 million. «We covered the deficit», Seccia remarks, «much faster than expected in the rebalancing plan. We will no longer burden future generations. Compared to the 79 days of delay recorded in 2016, in 2023 the Municipality paid the suppliers 2.2 days in advance compared to the standard 30 days available to the administrations, thus managing to spend 60 thousand euros more every month”. Today average payment times are 28 days compared to 109 in 2016. «We are among the most virtuous administrations in Italy, certainly in Abruzzo if we look at the capital municipalities», Seccia rejoices. «Not only has the city grown, but we have also repaid the debts with an improvement of which I am very proud. We have done what we committed to doing at the beginning of the mandate, thanks to an administrative structure that is second to none”, echoes Mayor Masci, also recalling the public works started “for 120 million euros between Pnrr funds, state transfers and regional”.
The improvement in the financial situation will translate with the next budget into the possibility of taking out mortgages and the elimination of hiring constraints. «Until now we have had to extricate ourselves like tightrope walkers», concluded Masci, «at the end of the year however the new mayor, who I hope will be me, will be able to draw up a budget in which there is a reduction in municipal taxes, new competitions and an increase in the of public works”.
