The Council Assembly today approved the 2023 financial statement of the Municipality of Ancona.
The document refers to a year in which the financial management of the organization was characterized by the succession of two different administrations, following the electoral consultation of May 2023.
The accounts certify an administrative result of 52 million euros calculated as of 31 December 2023 (gross of provisions and restrictions), which confirms the trend of improvement of the same over the years, and a final cash fund of 25.7 million euro, with a trend which, throughout the entire management, has never made it necessary to resort to the cash advance tool. A positive signal, the latter, from the technical management point of view, to which other significant data are added, first of all the greater recovery of the extraordinary historical deficit – which includes provisions and constraints – (2 million euros in 2023, further than the minimum amount foreseen for the shelf by a specific municipal resolution of 2016 of 1.4 million euros), the balance of which at 12/31/2023 amounts to 24 million euros (out of 44 million in 2015).
Furthermore, on the residual assets front, we note the launch of revenue recovery actions and in particular the acceleration of collections, also with the involvement of Ancona Entrate Srl, as well as the adoption of measures for the cancellation of tax bills and injunctions of payment, permitted by the 2023 budget law. In particular, the Municipality of Ancona was affected by two types of “scrapping”: the write-off of credits with a residual amount, as of 1 January 2023, up to one thousand euros; the cancellation of payment orders issued from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2015, with a residual amount as of 1 January 2023 of up to 1,000 euros.
In terms of the efficiency and effectiveness of administrative action, the main factors that have left little room for the exercise of administrative discretion in the management of current expenditure have been highlighted. Among these, the most significant are the weight of mortgages, contracted largely during the previous syndicates after the suspension of the stability pact; continuous fixed expenses, inflation, personnel costs and the size of the doubtful debt fund (whose most important, historically consolidated items concern IMU recoveries, waste tax, fines to the highway code), which constitutes the most important part of the provisions (almost 31 million euros out of a total of 46 million), on which the administration intends to intervene with a general reorganization.
In relation to indebtedness, the data show a significant growth between 2021 and 2023. The total of new loans in 2023 amounts to 14,988,000 euros, partly for the co-financing of PNRR projects.
Furthermore, the financial management of the 2023 financial year was characterized by the definitive overcoming of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to the progressive recovery of all economic activities and, at the same time, the cessation of extraordinary contributions from the State which, during the pandemic period, had constituted an important support for municipal budgets. In addition to this, all PNRR construction sites were started during 2023 with the consequent use of the assigned resources.
On the energy costs front, the 2023 financial year saw a progressive slowdown in prices, after the rapid and significant growth in the 2022 financial year due to the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, which had led to a significant increase, in particular, in expenses supported by the Municipality for the supply of heat and electricity. However, given the slowdown in prices, State intervention in the form of extraordinary contributions has also been significantly reduced, going from 1,140 million euros in 2022 to 295 thousand euros in 2023.
The renegotiation of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti mortgages carried out in 2022 had a positive impact on the current balances for the 2023 financial year. This operation made it possible to achieve significant savings in terms of amortization installments for the 2023 financial year and an overall saving of the operation, but will lead to an increase starting from the 2024 financial year, with a consequent burden on the current expenditure of the following financial years, as already highlighted when preparing and presenting the 2024 budget forecast.
