Edited by Andrea Pacilli
Dear director
What is the budget of the Municipality of Manfredonia at present? A topic that is certainly close to the hearts of all citizens. Always benefiting from the help of Nicola di Bari, economist and author of numerous articles already published in the newspaper The attacklet’s take a quick look at the public accounts of the Municipality of our beautiful town.
First, let’s check the annual tax revenue that the municipal machine recorded for 2022. We see that revenue was just under 30 million euros; how did they divide?
The most important concern the IMU, with just over 11 million, the TARI with almost 7 million and the IRPEF with almost 3.7 million. Then there’s the equalization fund(the money given by the State for the Municipalities in pre-disaster) for 7 and a half million; finally we count 211 thousand euros in revenue from “advertising taxes” and 125 thousand euros from the tourist tax.
The current expenditure on the other hand (i.e. how much the Municipality spends to administer the city) amounts to 40 million and 171 thousand euros. If we look at the go out municipal authorities, looking at the breakdown of current spending for missions and programsi.e. the expenditure items that the Municipality faces in the area, we note the following.
We see that over 30% of current spending, for 12.2 million euros, is made up of cleaning the city through the subsidiary ASE spa.
On the institutional services front (the costs for the functioning of the municipality such as staff, compensation of councilors and councilors, utilities, etc.) the expenses amount to 9.7 million euros (24.29%), of which, the expenditure for the personnel of the municipal machinery accounts for 5 million and 776 thousand euros, i.e. 14.44% of the total.
For services and purchases the Municipality spends 62.35% (24,940 m), and for transfers to other PAs 15.78% (6,312 m).
The resources allocated to welfare, however, in 2022 amounted to 7.1 million (17.79%), and those for transport and mobility 5.2 million (12.95%); for public order and security 1.7 million. 1.7 million (4.23%) are allocated to education.
Therefore, if we focus on the costs for cleaning the city, i.e. the ASE, we see that the expenses are 12.2 million euros while the TARI, i.e. the waste tax, produces revenues of almost 7 million euros. We immediately understand that there is an imbalance between spending and revenue: 12.2-7 = 5 million euros and more of difference in loss. This 5 million difference is due to tax evasion of the tax that every citizen owes for garbage disposal. This is a striking fact.
But if we then see how much is reserved for rumors culture, economical progress, youth policies, tourism, Health, labor policies, agriculture and fishingand others, we realize that the current expenditure for all these items, all together, is considerably lower than even the 4 percent dedicated to just instruction; we can estimate, in the year 2022, this expense relating to all those items together was equal to 757 euros per inhabitanthighlights Nicola from Bari.
An overall expense of this type, much lower than 4%, for these items which can be summarized in the definition of expenses reserved for development and growth, means that for these individual items the expense was practically zero. It is true that this absence is affected by the Municipality’s budget deficit, still equal to Euro 14 million, and whose total recovery is expected at the end of 2028 (this is 2 million Euros per year for the next six years), but it is also true that , by way of metaphor, if when you are without oxygen and to save money you also take away that little oxygen you have, in the end you die.
That is, the Municipality of Manfredonia actually spends nothing on Culture (whatever is meant by this word), on Tourism (here too everyone talks about it as a driving force for the city but it is totally neglected), on labor policies , for the development of agriculture and especially fishing.
However, if we look at the programs of our candidates, these items are identified as the cornerstones and foundations of the hypothetical planned relaunch, but in the Municipality’s spending in 2022 these items are practically and totally absent.
The question is: can a city be relaunched by focusing on sectors that until now have had nothing in the budget?
Consequently: where will our next administrators find the funds? I don’t know, now, how much was spent in the years before the dissolution of the Municipality on these rumors, it would be interesting to go and see it (but I’m afraid not much); the question now is that from July the mayor will have to set up the table but there is absolutely nothing in the pantry to prepare what should be the main dishes.
In summary, from this rapid and certainly incomplete final balance, we realize that the municipal machine of Manfredonia is a loser in terms of tax evasion of the waste tax, thus having something like 5 million euros subtracted from it; which spends absolutely nothing in both material and immaterial development sectors; which does not optimize potentially available revenue resources: advertising collection, tourist tax, occupation of public land, various permits, here too it is a resounding loser; which records tax revenues of only 9 million higher than the black money produced by the laundering of dirty mafia money (which we saw in the last article is around 21 million).
A great challenge for the next mayor.
